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He’s been sliding almost from the beginning. Now that Ted Cruz wants to be president, he’s alienated too many important people in his party to expect much support, and without that support, his candidacy goes nowhere. “He is the darling of conservatives in a conservative party. But he remains a long shot, at best,” according to Nate Cohn at The Upshot.

Political scientists argue that the single most important determinant of the outcome of the nomination is support from party elites: those operatives who can staff a winning campaign; the donors who fund it; the elected officials and interest group leaders who bestow the credibility necessary to persuade voters and affect media coverage. …Upshot,NYT.

His numbers are low within his own party. Only Chris Christie, the Times reports, does worse. With 18 candidates already ahead of them, the Texan and the New Jersey governor aren’t looking exactly viable except — maybe — in Iowa.

You could perhaps conjure a scenario in which Mr. Cruz pulls it off. The Republican Party is conservative and populist, and Mr. Bush is hardly a perfect fit for the primary electorate. Forty-two percent of voters say they could not see themselves supporting him. Mr. Cruz runs a sharp campaign and excels in the debates (he was a champion debater at Princeton); comes across as capable of winning a general election and then governing responsibly; and ultimately earns grudging acceptance from party elites. …Upshot,NYT

Okay. But how long has it been since a Republican — at national level — “governed responsibly”? Like … five and a half decades?

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The Washington Post’s Dan Balz has a sunnier view of radical conservatism and perhaps Cruz’s chances, writing that Cruz “also offered an upbeat portrayal of what the country would be like if it were guided by the conservative principles he espouses.”

The speech was long on imagination of a better world grounded in constitutional principles. He imagined the repeal of Obamacare, the abolishment of the Internal Revenue Service, the demise of Common Core standards.

Absent were the practical policies that would bring about those changes, as well as the promise of robust economic growth and opportunities he said would take place with a return to first principles. This was not the day for policy white papers, however. Those can come later.

What Cruz offered in his announcement — what his candidacy is about — is a robust call to arms to tea partiers, evangelicals and people feeling cut out by the party establishments of both parties. Invoking God and the Constitution throughout his speech, he said, “I believe in you. I believe in the power of millions of courageous conservatives rising up to reignite the promise of America.”

In his relatively brief time as a national politician, Cruz has shown himself to be brainy, driven and ambitious. What he has yet to show is the ability to take his outsider message, convert it from criticism to optimism and expand his appeal beyond the true believers. He has made the argument about what his party needs. Now he must try to prove that he is the messenger conservatives want in 2016. …DanBalz,WaPo

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Jonathan Chait looks at what is driving Ted Cruz and his party.

Conservatives have not completely worked out how far they would go if given absolute power — back to 1932? 1905? — but they agree on the direction. This is the key factor distinguishing Cruz’s revolt against the party elite from Goldwater’s. Goldwater had both a substantive program and a political theory that distinguished him from his party’s leaders. Cruz has only a political theory. Because he agrees with the policy goals of figures like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, all he can do to distinguish himself from them is stoke the suspicions of the base that those goals have been undermined from within. His shutdowns, his filibusters, his wild personal attacks — they all reinforce Cruz’s story. He is the one Republican too brave and pure to submit to the Obama agenda. If his tactics fall short, it merely serves to dramatize his colleague’s fecklessness.

All this is why so many Republicans despise Cruz, and it will make it difficult for him to win the nomination. But the loathing between Cruz and his party is not some failing of etiquette. It is his entire plan. …Chait,DailyIntel

Cross posted from Prairie Weather

Photo by Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons