Harry Reid: Ted Cruz "is a laughing stock to everybody but him."

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"No one outside the Beltway," Rushton added, "cares about politicians squabbling."  
Excuuuuse us?  That's a stupid comment-- of course we care!  
Look at what the squabblers did to us with the government shutdown!
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Harry Reid On David Vitter And His Obamacare Amendment: 'He Just Is Not Playing With A Full Deck'
By Sam Stein and Ryan Grim, October 18, 2013

[snipped]

One conservative who had an outsized influence on the shutdown was Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who urged House Republicans to attach a defund-Obamacare provision to a government funding bill. When that demand provoked the shutdown, Cruz urged those same House lawmakers to pass only piecemeal funding fixes. A few nights before the crisis was resolved, Cruz was talking strategy with conservative House members at a Mexican joint blocks from the Capitol building.

Reid said that in his 30 years in Congress, he could not recall a senator meddling so much in House affairs.

"Ted Cruz, well, he proved he has a great fundraising operation," Reid said. "But you don't have to have Harry Reid criticizing him. Republicans criticized him. What do you think that vote was last night from Republicans? That was a message to Ted Cruz: 'What the hell are you doing?'… He is a laughing stock to everybody but him. What has he accomplished other than raising some money for president? And if this man can get the nomination to be the Republican nominee for president, I pity the Republican Party.

"Ted Cruz is smart," Reid added. "He has always been able to talk down to people. He is now in the Senate. People are as smart as he is. He can't talk down to anyone anymore. But he has still not accepted that in his own head. He still thinks he's smarter than everybody else. He might be able to work a calculus problem better than I can. But he can't legislate better than I can."

Sean Rushton, a spokesman for Cruz, responded that the Cruz "remains focused on making Washington listen to the people who are being harmed by Obamacare."

"No one outside the Beltway," Rushton added, "cares about politicians squabbling."
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