@hawkeye10,
hawkeye10 wrote:
cruz could easily make ten times more money than he does so this is not about that. congress is highly fucked up so not much gets done there so it is not a place to go for accumulating power either, so if that is his drive he could do much better elsewhere. if one wants to be prez then the thing to do is come from state government, and I highly doubt that cruz does not know this but he choose to be in the Senate anyway so I doubt that he has any great drive to be prez.
the overwhelming odds are that the guy mostly wants to serve the people.
Can't agree with you hawkeye.
A lot of members of government make an enormously greater amount of money than they could in the private sector (think LBJ, Nancy Pelosi or Bill and Hillary Clinton).
Granted, Cruz has the bonifides, intelligence, and skills to have made a lot of money as a lawyer. More on the side of the plaintiff than the defendant, but it's not a sure thing. He didn't leave a highly lucrative practice to join the government (a la John Edwards).
But, I guess I agree that he's not in it for fortune. I really have no idea as to whether he would be where he is today if the best being a Senator could offer is a middle-class life-style, but I don't think his motivation is money.
As for power? Of course that's why he's in the games just like virtually every other politician who has had a significant impact (good or bad).
Despite all of the nutty conspiracy theorists claiming that rich men in the shadows or on the sidelines are actually pulling the strings of all politicians, there is no greater level of power than national government.
None.
This is not to suggest that Cruz wants to rule the US or the world, but, clearly, he wants power.
In and of itself this isn't necessarily a bad thing.
If you believe you have most, if not all, of the solutions to the problems the country faces, then you must acquire power if you are to implement them.
Even if your solutions are flawed and can't deliver what you think they will, the effort to obtain power is not necessarily a bad thing.
However, time after time it has been shown that people who seek power to solve problems end up acting badly to preserve their power for no other reason than they can't bear letting it go. The goals that led them to the pursuit become a warped pretense.
I don't think Ted Cruz rises to the level of altruist, potentially corrupted by power. He wants power for the sake of power.
Of course this doesn't make him some unique monster, rather it places him squarely among,
at least, the other people who have sought the presidency since 1960.
For the most part, people who rise to power, want power.
