Insert cricket noises here.
Theoretical-maybe presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz gave a version of his standard stump speech to the International Association of Firefighters for their "presidential summit." It didn't go well; Cruz dished out his usual stream of over-the-top lines sure to get applause from his usual conservative audiences, but this wasn't his usual conservative audience.
So, oops.
The Now This News crew clipped together the highlights, which include some of the CPAC applause lines.
Nothing. Zip. After the speeches, the firefighters I talked to had a few good things to say about South Carolina Lindsey Graham, who discussed homeland security, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who stuck largely to a story about his upbringing. No one had anything good to say about Cruz. "I had to take a shower after listening to that," said Washington state IAFF leader Ricky Walsh.
And that's after all Sen. Ted Cruz's problem, or more accurately the CPAC problem writ large. The kind of apocalyptic rhetoric necessary in order to get a rise out of the hard-right base in the hard-right bubble Ted Cruz and other candidates usually confine themselves to sounds (rightly) like the ravings of a lunatic to other, less conservative audiences. It used to be a bit easier for Republican politicians to finesse the differences, but as any watcher of the Republican House can attest those days are long past. The current crop of conservative stars was picked because they have no interest in that finesse, but instead were elected based on precisely how far-right they were willing to position themselves.
So we get spectacles like this, with actual elected officials like Ted Cruz telling audiences of moderates that he wants to abolish the IRS and move IRS agents to the border to guard against tha immigrants, and the audience (rightly) looking at him like he's a strange carnival exhibit.