OF THE top two Republicans in Iowa, one is a universally recognisable type. Short on policy, long on ego and bombast, promising to redeem a nation he disparages through the force of his will, Donald Trump’s strongman shtick is familiar from Buenos Aires to Rome, inflected though it is by reality TV and the property business. The other, Ted Cruz, champion of the caucuses, is the scion of a particular version of America and of a peculiar era in its history; a politician who repels or baffles many of his compatriots, even as others rally to his godly standard.
Superficially the senator from Texas is a classic overachiever, whose ability to surmount Himalayan obstacles—such as winning that office in his first-ever political race—bespeaks and fuels an adamantine self-confidence; the sort whose warp-speed ascent is powered by strenuous calculation and fearsome intelligence. Don Willett, a judge and long-term acquaintance, describes Mr Cruz as a “freakishly gifted” lawyer; watching him argue at the Supreme Court, during his stint as Texas’s solicitor-general, was “like watching Michael Jackson unveil the moonwalk”.
Like many...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/1P3Hb8o
EmoticonEmoticon