Donald Trump Isn’t the Biggest Narcissist in the GOP Field. Ted Cruz Is.

I know a televangelist candidate when I see one.

By Curt Anderson, Politico.com
December 23, 2015

To hear the pundits and experts in Washington tell it, the problem with Ted Cruz is that he doesn’t play well with others in the Senate, he’s too hardheaded and he doesn’t compromise. In other words, he’s exactly what the Republican primary voters want.

On this score, I side with the Republican primary voters. If Cruz’s problem is that he is a conservative who has no regard for senatorial decorum and fights too hard for the right things, I’m all in.

But there is a far bigger problem with Cruz: Donald Trump is not the most self-absorbed Republican running for president—Cruz is. Whether you like Trump or not (and I don’t), at least Trump makes no effort to hide his narcissism. In that sense, Trump is oddly genuine.

Cruz, on the other hand, takes great pains to be whatever he thinks you want him to be. And the troubling thing is he’s really good at it.

Occasionally, he offers a glimpse of his vanity and his need to be loved—such as the hilariously painful 15 hours of B-roll footage his campaign put on the Web for use by his super PACs. My favorite part of that footage is the multiple times he and his family practiced the prayer scene before a meal … once more, with feeling. There is nothing quite as genuine and humble as a rehearsed, made-for-TV prayer.

(More here.)