David Weigel has a good (both civil and probing) interview with Nebraska Republican Senate candidate Ben Sasse. I’m not sure I agree with Weigel’s framing of Sasse as a Ted-Cruz-type. Reading the Weigel interview and other stories about Sasse, my sense is that Sasse has a chance to be a constructive and reformist politician along the lines of a Paul Ryan who focuses on specific ways to reform health care and entitlement policy. Sasse could be a reformist Yuval Levin Republican. Cruz got a lot of attention for his defunding Obamacare initiative but when you strip out all the references to the Framers and Ayn Rand, it was all about getting us back to 2009. Ryan actually got the congressional Republican party to commit to supporting competitive bidding for Medicare. If we are very lucky, we might spend 2015 wondering if Ted Cruz could develop into another Ben Sasse.
You have a decision to make: double or nothing.
For this week only, a generous supporter has offered to fully match all new and increased donations to First Things up to $60,000.
In other words, your gift of $50 unlocks $100 for First Things, your gift of $100 unlocks $200, and so on, up to a total of $120,000. But if you don’t give, nothing.
So what will it be, dear reader: double, or nothing?
Make your year-end gift go twice as far for First Things by giving now.
