By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS—U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, R-Indiana, and his fellow deep-thinking Republican colleagues in what once was the world’s greatest deliberative body are like dogs chasing cars.

They don’t understand quite why they’re doing it.

And they know even less what they would do if they succeeded in their quest.

Braun is one of 12 GOP senators who have signed on to an effort to delay President-elect Joe Biden from taking up residence in the White House. The members of this brain trust say they will oppose accepting electoral college results from key battleground states. They hope to keep defeated President Donald Trump in office.

With one exception, these senators, including Braun, are among that once-august chamber’s dimmest bulbs. One of the 12, an intellectual giant from Alabama named Tommy Tuberville, made national news because he couldn’t name the three branches of the federal government.

The one exception to the low-wattage capacity of this crew is Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

Cruz is bright, but—to borrow Sam Houston’s epic condemnation of Jefferson Davis—the Texas senator is “ambitious as Lucifer.”

And even less likable than that fallen angel.

Cruz’s fellow Senate colleague Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, once joked about Cruz’s winning personality.

“If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you,” Graham said.

Part of what makes Cruz so charming is his willingness—no, eagerness—to sell out anyone, no matter how close to him, in service of his hunger to sit in the Oval Office.

He’s helping Trump maintain the delusion that he won the 2020 election. The Texas senator is carrying the flag for the president because Trump has been so kind to the Cruz family.

In 2016 GOP primaries, Trump accused Cruz’s father of being part of the plot to kill President John F. Kennedy. Then, for good measure, Trump said Cruz’s wife was ugly.

That’s right.

Donald Trump called Cruz’s father a murderer and insulted the man’s wife.

And Cruz’s response is to lick Trump’s boots and do his dirty work for him.

Those are some family values, huh?

Cruz at least has au understandable reason for signing on to this destructive fool’s errand. He made it clear long, long ago that he was willing to sell his soul—and at a discount—to climb the next rung on the ladder.

Lightweights like Braun are another story.

They’re doing it because they can’t seem to think of anything better—dealing with the pandemic, keeping Americans from losing their homes, etc.—to do with their time.

They reveal as much in the statement announcing their plans to obstruct the orderly transfer of power. They cite the “unprecedented allegations” of voter fraud in the presidential election.

The allegations in fact are unprecedented. Until now, senators who made allegations of crimes committed without proof faced censure.

Thus far, despite 60 lawsuits launched by Trump and his cronies and exhaustive recounts and investigations in all the battleground states, the only credible instances of voter fraud involve isolated schemes by Trump voters to have dead relatives cast ballots for their candidate.

The efforts of Cruz, Braun and the other members of their motley crew are likely to backfire.

Most immediately, they have made it much more difficult for Republicans to hold onto the two U.S. Senate seats—and thus control of the Senate—up for grabs in Georgia’s runoff election. Normally, a GOP victory in Georgia should be a sure thing, but Trump and his minions have turned those races into nail-biters.

If Cruz, Braun and their buddies cost Republicans the Senate, there won’t be much they can do to keep Biden and his fellow Democrats from pushing through their agenda.

Then there’s the larger problem Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, pointed out. Romney said this opens the door for any party to refuse to recognize any election outcome it doesn’t like.

And, last, there’s this. One way to eliminate the controversy and dismay over electoral votes in battleground states would be to have the winner of the presidency determined by popular vote.

Republicans have won the popular vote in presidential races exactly once since 1988.

But these are considerations only to people who think ahead.

Dogs chasing cars.

Ted Cruz, Mike Braun and company raising frivolous objections.

Same difference.

FOOTNOTE:  John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

The City-County Observer posted this article without opinion, bias, or editing.