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You are here: Home / Senate / Cruz and Lee Now Play an Inside Game

Cruz and Lee Now Play an Inside Game

July 1, 2017 at 12:06 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Four years ago, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz launched an all-out media blitz to stop Obamacare implementation that culminated in a 16-day government shutdown. Now the conservative senators are still pressuring GOP leaders to go further than their colleagues in gutting the law, but they’re making their push through quiet backroom conversations instead,” Politico reports.

“It’s a shift for the Senate GOP’s two leading agitators, who are trying to build consensus in their own unique, hard-line way. And where they end up will ultimately determine whether Republicans are able to pass a bill.”

“If Lee and Cruz are able to help craft a compromise that can win 50 Republican votes, their support will go far in easing concerns from other conservatives who still deride the bill as Obamacare-lite. Yet the firm positions of Cruz (R-Texas) and Lee (R-Utah) are still imperiling the Senate Republicans’ repeal effort by pushing the party more to the right than many more centrist lawmakers would like to go.”

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Filed Under: Senate Tagged With: Mike Lee, Ted Cruz

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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