[quote]You’re evaluating candidates for an open job in your company, and you come across one who makes a big impression. He’s clearly brilliant — maybe smarter than any of the others. He’s a whirlwind of energy. And man oh man can he give a presentation. On any subject, he’s informed, inflamed, precise. But then you talk with people who’ve worked with him at various stages of his career. They dislike him No, scratch that They loathe him [/quote][quote]They grant him all of the virtues that you’ve observed, but tell you that he’s the antithesis of a team player. His thirst for the spotlight is unquenchable. His arrogance is unalloyed. He actually takes pride in being abrasive, as if a person’s tally of detractors measures his fearlessness, not his obnoxiousness. Do you hire this applicant? No way.[/quote] [quote]He likened Senate Republicans who recognized the impossibility of defunding Obamacare to [url=http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law]-godwinslaw!-[/url] appeasers. They took note. “As Cruz gains, GOP senators rally for Rubio” said the headline of a story this week in Politico, which explained: “The idea of Cruz as the nominee is enough to send shudders down the spines of most Senate Republicans.” Support for Rubio is the flower of anyone-but-Cruz dread. Anyone but Cruz: That’s the leitmotif of his life, stretching back to college at Princeton. His freshman roommate, Craig Mazin, told Patricia Murphy of The Daily Beast: “I would rather have anybody else be the president of the United States. Anyone. I would rather pick somebody from the phone book." It’s not easy to come across on-the-record quotes like that, and Mazin’s words suggest a disdain that transcends ideology. They bear heeding. So does Cruz’s experience in the policy shop of George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign. After Bush took office, other full-time advisers got plum jobs in the White House. Cruz was sent packing to the Siberia of the Federal Trade Commission. [/quote][quote]The political strategist Matthew Dowd, who worked for Bush back then, tweeted that “if truth serum was given to the staff of the 2000 Bush campaign,” an enormous percentage of them “would vote for Trump over Cruz.” Another Bush 2000 alumnus said to me: “Why do people take such an instant dislike to Ted Cruz? It just saves time.” His three signature moments in the Senate have been a florid smearing of Chuck Hagel with no achievable purpose other than attention for Ted Cruz, a flamboyant rebellion against Obamacare with no achievable purpose other than attention for Ted Cruz, and a fiery protest of federal funding for Planned Parenthood with no achievable purpose other than attention for Ted Cruz. Notice any pattern? Asked about Cruz at a fund-raiser last spring, John Boehner responded by raising a lone finger — the middle one.[/quote] As a quick disclaimer, this is an [i]opinion[/i] piece. There are, however, some pretty damning [i]facts[/i] mixed in. Edit: [url=http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/opinion/anyone-but-ted-cruz.html?referer=&_r=1]Source[/url] [url=https://mobile.twitter.com/albz/status/672855428649324545/photo/1]Another fun quote[/url] My thoughts: [spoiler]Cruz is the one candidate who legitimately frightens me. Trump can be a big-haired fear monger, Carson's IQ varies by about 100 points depending on the day, and Jeb hasn't done enough to distance himself from his brother, but none of them have the same sort of malice I sense in Cruz.[/spoiler] Discuss.