Baptist of fire

IN OFFICES around the country bets have been placed on March Madness, the college basketball tournament that pits a bewildering number of teams against each other in a knockout formula designed to throw up surprises. Not to be outdone, the Republican Party’s presidential primary for 2016 is also now under way, after Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas, declared his candidacy on Twitter and launched it a few hours later before 10,000 students at Liberty University, a Christian college in Virginia, on March 23rd. Most of what is said now about an election that will not take place until November 2016 can safely be disregarded. But Senator Cruz’s candidacy is worth taking seriously because he represents a distinctive style in American politics, which may prove more popular than his detractors realise.

Among the detractors, opinions range from those who think Mr Cruz is the new Joe McCarthy to those who reckon he is a (mostly) harmless kook. His fans see something else: a ferociously intelligent Hispanic conservative who can best almost anyone in debate and a devout Southern Baptist who makes them feel good.

Mr Cruz revels in the hysterical reaction his name provokes among Democrats, the result of two decades of hard work. As a young lawyer he helped to craft legal arguments for the impeachment of Bill Clinton and then, in 2000, was part of George W. Bush’s legal team when Florida’s votes were recounted. When he moved from Washington, DC back to Texas to become the state’s solicitor-general, he specialised in cases that expanded gun rights, shored up the death penalty and endorsed a particular view of religious liberty: that keeping religion away from public institutions threatens faith rather than protecting it.

After a Senate campaign that attracted support from the most outraged bits of the Republican base, and resulted in a surprise primary victory in 2012, the newly arrived senator turned his attention to his own side. The government shutdown and subsequent gunfight over raising the debt ceiling, intended to remove funding from Obamacare in the autumn of 2013, were partly of his design. The key to making the plan work, he explained, was not to blink first. Republicans lost that fight because the plan was unworkable, but that is not how Mr Cruz sees it. He notes that Republicans went on to capture the Senate.

Other highlights of his time in Congress have included an updating of one of Cicero’s speeches to cast Barack Obama in the role of a conspirator planning to overthrow the republic, and reading a Dr Seuss story from the chamber floor, as part of a 21-hour speech. What Mr Cruz has not done while in the Senate is interesting too. He has neither proposed substantial legislation nor championed any policy that cannot be conveyed in 140 characters.

Many of the other potential Republican candidates have made efforts to change the party’s position on issues that matter. Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky, argues that America should drop fewer bombs abroad and lock up fewer young black men at home. Jeb Bush, a former governor of Florida, favours common standards in schools and observes that the government cannot deport all 11m illegal immigrants. Marco Rubio, a senator from Florida, wants the tax code to ease poverty and encourage work. Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, seems to agree with Mr Cruz that the key to winning the White House is to be more conservative, but even he has had to work with others to govern a medium-sized state. Mr Cruz’s conservatism is unsullied by any whiff of compromise.

This is one of his favourite themes. His speeches often include an applause line about how the real divide in America is not between Republicans and Democrats but between professional politicians and the American people. Presented this way politics is simple, for there are no difficult trade-offs. In Lynchburg he proposed scrapping the Internal Revenue Service while also guaranteeing every child “a right to a quality education” and health insurance that is “personal and portable and affordable”. He reminisced about an America that has welcomed so many millions, including his Cuban-born father, then asked when the country would “finally, finally, finally” get a president who secures the borders.

Anyone interested in more detail must guess it from the company Mr Cruz keeps. He might favour some version of the tax plan proposed by Mr Rubio and Mike Lee, a senator from Utah, which would cut business taxes, eliminate capital-gains and estate taxes and increase tax breaks for parents (it has less detail on spending cuts). Rather than make choices or solve problems, though, Mr Cruz would rather turn every discussion into a debate about the meaning of America as enshrined in the constitution. This can become wearying.

It is also an unpromising route to the White House. Around 40% of Americans consistently describe themselves as conservative, twice the proportion who describe themselves as liberal but tantalisingly short of a majority. To win in a nation split down the middle in presidential elections the Republican Party cannot rely on social conservatives alone, (which was the notion Mr Cruz suggested to Liberty University’s students). The Pew Research Centre estimates that only about 12% of Americans are socially conservative populists. Nearly as many are business conservatives who hold many opposing views. Add younger Republicans, who tend to marry more socially liberal views with a desire for less government, stir in the coolness of the party’s biggest donors towards Mr Cruz, and his strategy looks shakier still.

Yet Mr Cruz can shape the Republican primary without winning it. A victory in Iowa could knock out one of the front-runners, leaving the race clearer for whoever is left. He might drag the other candidates to the right, making them unelectable in the general election. Or he could divide the socially conservative vote and let a less preachy candidate capture the nomination. One thing is sure: if the Republicans lose, Mr Cruz will say it was because they weren’t conservative enough.