Texas senator and rising Republican star Ted Cruz received some praise Sunday from an unlikely quarter – former Clinton adviser and Democratic political analyst James Carville.
Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” Carville described the Republican in terms he doesn’t normally lavish even on Democrats.
“I think he is the most talented and fearless Republican politician I’ve seen in the last 30 years,” Carville said. “I further think that he’s going to run for president and he is going to create something. I’m not sitting here saying he’s going to win, and I think Senator DeMint is right. I’ve listened to excerpts of his speech in South Carolina. He touches every button, and this guy has no fear. He just keeps plowing ahead. And he is going to be something to watch.”
Carville said Cruz was just what hardcore conservatives need right now: a candidate who isn’t, to borrow Cruz’s own controversial word, “squishy.”
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“And a lot of Republicans feel this way, George, and you hear this a lot,” Carville said to moderator George Stephanopoulos, himself a former Clinton adviser, too. “’If we only got someone who was articulate and was for what we were for, we would win elections. And we get these John McCains and these Mitt Romneys and these squishy guys that can’t do anything.’ Well, there’s one thing this guy is not - he ain’t squishy, not in the least.”
Carville continued, predicting a very rough battle ahead for possible 2016 candidates Sens. Marco Rubio and Rand Paul.
“Ted Cruz is going to eat their lunch,” Carville said. “That guy, I’m telling you, he will out debate. I am just saying, he is a talent. I’m not rooting. I’m really sincere here. We watch him, he does things, I mean when he started talking about William Travis in South Carolina and the Alamo, this is a guy, and you go, ‘This guy is something.’
"Now I don’t agree with him. I think he’s out there. But I’m telling you, he’s more talented than all of these other guys.”
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