As we wake up today and survey a landscape littered with the corpses of Democrat political careers, it is worth remembering that many people predicted that this day would never come, all because of Ted Cruz. Throughout the last two years, Cruz has been one of the few Republicans who has not been afraid of his own shadow in the Senate, and virtually the only one to publicly stick his neck out in favor of doing anything. And at every step of the way he was scolded by his alleged political betters for damaging the GOP brand.

When Cruz stood at the center of the Obamacare repeal and budget shutdown and shone a light on the willingness of the administration to drive America off a fiscal cliff just to save their own pet legislation (which everyone hates), Republicans both privately and publicly blamed Cruz for costing them an opportunity to take back the Senate. Earlier this year when Cruz fought Boehner’s demand to give Obama a blank check on a clean debt ceiling increase, he was castigated again for allegedly putting the GOP in a bad position.

And yet none of the doom and gloom that was predicted has come true. The lily-livered defeatists can’t even make the claim that the GOP’s victory might have been larger ab[mc_name name=’Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’C001098′ ]’s intervention, because the GOP swept literally every competitive race except NH and made one race competitive that wasn’t supposed to be (VA). In the end, it is clear that Ted Cruz didn’t cost the GOP a single seat and, if anything, reinforced in the minds of the voters that at least some members of the GOP were willing to actually fight the Obama agenda tooth and nail.

Given exit polling showing the importance of opposing Obama in last night’s results, the Republicans who unjustly criticized Ted Cruz for having the gall to actually do something to stop what Obama wanted to accomplish ought to thank him, or at the very least apologize. But given what we know about Ted Cruz, I’m sure he already knows not to hold his breath waiting for one, and that he doesn’t overly much care if he gets it or not. He has work to do.