Ted Cruz: Hillary Clinton’s Wrecking Ball

The air waves and the Internet has been awash in the wake of Ted Cruz's announcement of of his delusional presidential campaign.  Officially, one has heard little or nothing from the Hillary Clinton camp, but many believe Hillary and company are trilled by Cruz's demented announcement since Cruz has the potential to make the GOP primary contest an absolute three ring circus and leave whoever is the eventual nominee bloodied and damaged goods.  A piece in Politico even suggests that Cruz will help set the state for Hillary to appear to be "the only adult" in the fray.  Here are excerpts:

Hillary Clinton’s embattled pre-campaign team breathed a sigh of relief Monday as a central player in their grand strategy to win the White House strode boldly onto the 2016 battlefield.  His name? Rafael Edward Cruz, the Republican junior senator from Texas.

[T]hose closest to the former secretary of state have counseled patience, arguing that a core element of Clinton’s plan was to get out of the way and let the dueling wings of the Republican Party savage each other while she floats above it all.  Cruz, they say, is Hillary’s wrecking ball.

People close to Clinton smiled at the sight of the first-term senator wandering alone on stage at Liberty University, implicitly threatening a civil war with the “mushy” establishment of his party that he loves to decry — while at the exact same time Clinton sat comfortably alongside heavyweights from her own party’s progressive and labor elements, who have thus far entirely declined to challenge her.

“Imagine repealing every word of Common Core,” Cruz implored his audience while announcing his presidential campaign in Lynchburg, Va., in the morning, implicitly previewing a fight over education policy that he intends to pick with Republican establishment favorite Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor.

Meanwhile the clamoring of some liberal groups to recruit Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the progressive darling, was entirely unheard in downtown Washington as Clinton spent her morning discussing domestic policy at the headquarters of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank run by her allies. The presumptive Democratic front-runner sat near a pair of union bosses and current and former urban mayors, making sure to throw in some love for liberal hero Bill de Blasio, the New York City mayor, as she previewed pieces of her likely domestic policy platform.

She touched all corners of the Democratic Party in the morning performance before meeting with President Barack Obama in the White House and speaking at an award ceremony for political reporters in the evening, dogged only by barbs from her Republican critics.

For Republicans, her camp figures, it signaled the beginning of a wild and messy primary contest that will let Clinton appear to be the adult in the room before she takes on a bloodied GOP nominee.

“Even if an establishment candidate wins, there is no question that Ted Cruz being in the race is going to pull the Republican Party much more to the right, and we know how that turns out,” Cardona added. “Just ask Mitt Romney.”

That contrast, Cardona said, is a particular powerful one as Cruz — who 2008 GOP nominee John McCain once called a “wacko bird” — launches his first withering criticisms on fellow Republicans.  “I’m sure she’s happy he’s running,” Cardona said.