In this sense, I put Cruz in a category with the Republicans’ new vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, a product of the elite Miami University of Ohio and a reasonable man who hardened his views to keep up with the Republicans’ ascendant conservatism. These are intellectually curious, liberal-arts conservatives who, although far to the right, are not temperamentally as unreasonable as they must pretend. If I’m correct that these are ambitious men using the Tea Party to get what they want, this could be good news if they achieve power and the irrational passions of the moment fade.
When I met Cruz a dozen years ago, I recognized his breed of Ivy League conservative. In the Yale Political Union, where I debated a quarter-century ago, there was a group called the Party of the Right, a band of young men who read Ayn Rand and were forever trying to get the union to hold a moment of silence in memory of Britain’s Charles the Martyr. A few were off the deep end, but most were harmless: They enjoyed mixing it up in debates on esoteric topics, preferably over drinks in silver chalices at Mory’s Temple Bar. Their far-out positions were taken, mostly, with a twinkle in the eye, and they went off to careers on Wall Street or in law firms.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member