Pareene doubts Ted Cruz will mount a successful bid for president:
[T]he trick is to try to be an insurgent conservative that the donor class is still comfortable with. Cruz is not bothering to make alliances with people whose support he would actually need if he decided to run for president. As a trio of BuzzFeed political reporters show, Cruz has already alienated the donor class.
Waldman also discounts Cruz’s chances:
[B]arring a run by the reanimated corpse of John C. Calhoun, Cruz is going to be the most conservative Republican running. And for all the talk of the power of the base, when was the last time the GOP nomination was won by the most conservative candidate in the race? You have to go all the way back to 1980 and Ronald Reagan. Ever since, Republican primary voters have ultimately gone with somebody who was conservative enough—not the most doctrinaire, not the most confrontational, but the one who assured them he’d be with them when it counted, but also assured them he could win. Ted Cruz will not be that candidate.
The Dish 