#APTOPIX Cruz Texas-Cruz trip tests durability of scandal, memory of voters

WASHINGTON (AP) - Ted Cruz's political career has already had many surprise blows before leaving for Mexico this week bringing a new level of notoriety.

The Texas senator was once the biggest threat to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential nomination. During a particularly bitter stretch of that year's Republican primary, Cruz called Trump a "coward" and a "pathological liar." Last month, however, Cruz was one of Trump's toughest allies and a leader in the former president's baseless attempt to overthrow the November election.

Such a move is intended to keep Cruz in a strong position with the GOP base if he returns to the White House in 2024. But they also turned him into one of Washington’s most villainized figures, someone willing to take any politically convenient position if he keeps his future ambitions alive.

Cruz is under more attack for traveling to Cancun while its constituents suffered a deadly winter storm that left hundreds of thousands without energy and running water. His explanation - that his sons pushed him to the getaway because they were out of school - was particularly vague.

The optics of the trip are hardly ideal. But the question is whether, three years before the voters face it again, the political downturn will last.

“Ted Cruz is feeling the first post-Trump controversy,” said New Hampshire-based Republican strategist Mike Biundo. "I don't think anyone knows exactly what's going to happen in this new reality we're living in."

Before Trump came to Washington, scandals, lies and sometimes even simple but major political careers declined.

Although he later won a congressional seat, former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford will be remembered forever for fabricating a trek along the Appalachian Trail, as former Rep. New York's Anthony Weiner has been plagued by repeated sexting scandals and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry could not survive the debate stage forgetting the third of three federal agencies he had promised to eliminate. 

Once Trump came to the White House, his foreign affairs attracted so much attention that something looked bad, such as not having much information when he had to take a vacation in the Senate while his state was in pain.

In the post-Traj political scenario, Cruz is navigating how much damage needs to be controlled.

He returned home on Thursday and told reporters the trip was "clearly a mistake." But he did not demonstrate publicly on Friday, and his office did not answer any questions about his schedule or what he was doing to help Texans cope with the storm. His office issued only one statement in support of Greg Abbott's request for federal assistance.

Still, Cruz is still the most prominent leader in the country's largest red state, with a much higher national profile than Abbott, who is also likely to be the 202th presidential contender, and Sen. John Cornyn, who ran for re-election last year. With a more comfortable margin than Cruz, which pushed Democrat Beto O'Urke to the brink in 2012.

Alice Stewart, a GOP strategist and Cruise's presidential campaign veteran, commented that in 20ator2, the Senate must either run for president or participate with them long before. It takes a long time to put Cancun's journey in the mirror in the review. "Even if Cruz's political opponents continue to spoil it.

"People have become much more tolerant during and after the Trump era," said Stuart, who said social media often intensifies political rhetoric, shortening their lifespan.

Rick Tyler also worked for Cruz's 2016 campaign but has since repeatedly criticized the senator for Trump's county. He said that while Texas was embarrassed down and out, the cruise's cruise trip was unforgivable: "There's no way to forget it."

"Cruz is very beaten," Tyler said of the Senate's re-election-related provisions. "He must decide. By doing one or the other, you risk losing both."

Of course, Cruz has in the past effectively used him to his advantage as one of Washington's most hated personalities. He came to Congress as a radical rebel who drove both sides into a frenzy - he even once tried to convince South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham that no senator would be found guilty of killing her in Cruz's room.