Opinion: Cruz can't refuse blame for shutdown

Texas Senator Ted Cruz has taken issue with a recent poll published on Oct. 10th that blamed the government shutdown on the Republican party.

The Tea Party senator met the data from an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll with skepticism, citing the fact that 20 percent of those polled were government workers.

The poll awarded Cruz a 14 percent approval rating, with his party picking up 10 additional percent to total an approval rating of 24 percent for the Republican party. Meanwhile, the favorability of the Democratic party declined three points to 39 percent.

Cruz has popped up in news circles as of late, with some prominent conservatives, notably John McCain, seeking to distance themselves from the Tea Party faction. Cruz became a Tea Party hero after his 21 hour filibuster of Obamacare, which featured the freshman Senator quoting Duck Dynasty and Star Wars and reading Dr. Suess’ classic “Green Eggs and Ham.”

Regarding the poll data, Cruz noted in an interview with NBC News: “That poll was very heavily weighted with an awful lot of Democrats, with an awful lot of Obama supporters, and 20 percent of the people polled were government workers. I don’t think it’s surprising that the people who work for the government who are supporters of the president and who are Democrats...and blame Republicans...That’s not reflective of where the country is.”

His comments seemed to indicate that because many of those polled were government workers, that they presumably were either unsupportive of him as Democrats or Obama supporters. But working for the government does not inherently make someone unsupportive of a Republican Senator.

Cruz went on to cite the Affordable Care Act, the effects of which have not been seen on a wide scale just yet, as the root cause that millions of people in the United States are struggling. He seemed regretful that President Barack Obama was unwilling to negotiate on passed legislation that will soon take effect.

If it seems familiar, it is because this a tale that has been laid out in front of Americans before. Leading up to the 2012 presidential election, Mitt Romney and supporters seemed not only negligent of, but spoke in direct contradiction of consistent polling results that showed Obama in the lead.

Karl Rove, a Republican strategist who is credited with helping launch George W. Bush to two presidential electoral victories, is another shining example of a Republican refusing to acknowledge the actual data. Rove, the founder of conservative Super PAC “American Crossroads” fumbled with statistics and inaccurate polling data on Fox News during election night coverage. He maintained that his data indicated that Mitt Romney still had a strong chance to take the election. This went strongly against a news crew in the studio that had virtually confirmed the election to Obama.

Cruz is just the latest example of a Republican politician who cited liberal bias in the media and unrepresentative demographics as the reasons for poor showing in the polls. Public opinion is not up for debate in this case.

Where does the blame end, and the accountability in understanding public opinion begin?