Jeff Greenfield is a five-time Emmy-winning network television analyst and author.

I saw it in a rock concert more than 40 years ago, when I saw The Band’s Robbie Robertson for the first time. I saw it at the U.S. Open when Andy Roddick, playing perhaps the best tennis of his life, went down in straight sets to Roger Federer. I saw it during the original run of “Company” when Elaine Stritch sang “Here’s To the Ladies Who Lunch.” At moments like these, you realize you are watching someone with an extraordinary gift.

And I saw it last night during the FOX Business News debate, when Sen. Ted Cruz again demonstrated that, in this political arena, he is simply better than anyone else.


This is not a judgment about the merits, or even the intellectual honesty, of his arguments. It is simply a judgment, based on some half a century of debate watching (and in an earlier life, debate-prepping), that Ted Cruz understands the format in a way his opponents do not. They are playing political checkers; he is playing political chess.

For decades now, a set of understandings have governed how debates are judged: It’s not about specifics, it’s about tone, demeanor, “optics.” (The late lamented political journalist Lars-Erik Nelson once scolded his colleagues by arguing, “you’ve all become theater critics.”) Ringside chroniclers—I’ve given up trying to avoid sports analogies—look for the memorable one-liner, the clash between combatants, the fatal slip that dooms a candidacy (“oops …”). Cruz, however, understands that a different, more consequential dynamic is actually at play: using the debate format to deliver variations on a single, dominant theme.

Look at his performance—and that’s the right word—at Tuesday night’s debate. Every answer was shaped by the underlying premises of his campaign: that he is the one candidate fighting the deeply corrupt political system, in which both parties cater to the financial and cultural elite, abandon traditional values, weaken our economic and moral fiber, as well as our security. No matter what the question, Cruz’s answers will hit several of these themes.

Consider his answer on immigration. In fact, he was not asked an immigration question, but he quickly turned from the topic—entitlement reform—to immigration. Any politician worth his or her salt knows how to pivot; but it’s where Cruz went with the question that demonstrates his skill.

“I understand that when the mainstream media covers immigration, it doesn’t often see it as an economic issue,” he began. “But, I can tell you for millions—of Americans at home watching this, it is a very personal economic issue. And, I will say the politics of it will be very, very different if a bunch of lawyers or bankers were crossing the Rio Grande. Or if a bunch of people with journalism degrees were coming over and driving down the wages in the press. Then, we would see stories about the economic calamity that is befalling our nation. And, I will say for those of us who believe people ought to come to this country legally, and we should enforce the law, we’re tired of being told it’s anti-immigrant. It’s offensive.”

“I am the son of an immigrant who came legally from Cuba … to seek the American dream. And, we can embrace legal immigration while believing in the rule of law … is not compassionate to say we're not going to enforce the laws. … And we’re going to drive down the wages for millions of hardworking men and women.”

In that single answer, Cruz managed to include the always-popular swipe at the media, slam the elites despised by left (bankers) and right (journalists), and link his hard-line stance on immigration not to a nativist impulse, but to a desire to protect the less skilled, less affluent workers whose wages are threatened by cheap labor. In a single answer, he struck populist, “Constitutionalist,” and compassionate notes, all premised on the belief—the make-or-break belief of his campaign—that the Republican base is now in substantial opposition to the Chamber of Commerce-Capitol Hill Republican Party that has chosen every nominee since Barry Goldwater half a century ago.

On a series of other questions, Cruz returned again and again to an assault on privileged economic elites—not the stuff of which usual Republican talking points are made. He argued that the defense budget increases could be paid for by cutting “corporate welfare, like sugar subsidies.” (Sugar subsidies, not so incidentally, are a particularly treasured herd of sacred cows in Florida, whence Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio happen to hail.) He broadened that theme when asked if he would bail out big banks in the event of a future financial crisis.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “What we have right now is we have Washington—as government gets bigger and bigger, you know, the biggest lie in all of Washington and in all of politics is that Republicans are the party of the rich. The truth is, the rich do great with big government. They get in bed with big government. The big banks get bigger and bigger and bigger under Dodd-Frank and community banks are going out of business.” (This was, in fact, factually inaccurate, but neither moderators nor candidates called him on it—a piece of good luck repeated when he listed the Department of Commerce twice as agencies he’d abolish; no one asked him for the complete list, thus eliminating any chance that Cruz would wind up as Rick Perry 2.0.)

But then came a pivot that was classic Cruz: As he talked about a female African-American small-business owner who challenged an IRS rule that “in classic Washington crony fashion had exemptions for lawyers and big fancy accountants, [but] would have driven her out of business, and Ms. Loving sued the IRS. She took the Obama IRS to court, and she won, and they struck down the rule for picking the big guys over the little guys.”

Once again, Cruz had in his sights the bureaucrats and the privileged—this time conspiring to harm a plucky black entrepreneur. And that answer helped set the template for his description of Hillary Clinton.

“When we talk about the cronyism of Washington,” he said, “Hillary Clinton embodies the cronyism.”

It’s true, of course, that debating skills only take you so far; but it also is true that it can be a pretty fair distance. Four years ago, Newt Gingrich became a serious competitor, despite enough baggage to overload a FedEx plane, by outperforming his rivals on the debate stage. (I described his skills in these pages four years ago.)

What Cruz is demonstrating, as Gingrich did, is the ability to weave any answer to any topic into a broader argument that resonates with the Tea Party and evangelical wings of the Republican Party, and that embodies the sense of resentment and disaffection that has propelled Donald Trump into a status almost no political observer imagined. It is of a piece with Cruz's fundamental campaign approach, which fuses highly specific, almost wonky-sounding policy points and broader populist themes that resonate with even the most policy-averse corners of the Republican electorate.

This is no guarantee that he will wind up as the GOP nominee, or that if he does, he will find a ready audience in the broader electorate. There are plenty of grounds to see in Cruz a very skillful demagogue, and there are plenty of debates left in whichh a rival might find the weaknesses in his argument, just as Mitt Romney unhorsed Gingrich just before the key Florida primary in 2012.

But here’s a bit of advice to those who would find a Cruz nomination or presidency a disaster: The single biggest mistake that is made in politics is to underestimate an adversary.