Posted on 03/23/2015 5:02:01 AM PDT by LeoMcNeil
Ted Cruz is set to announce is candidacy for President of the United States. Rand Paul is apparently going to announce early next month before going on a campaign tour. Until today technically the only candidate was Jeb Bush, who announced late last year his intentions. At the time everyone thought that Bush was going to force everyone else to declare their candidacy early. It doesn’t appear that has happened, Cruz and Paul have appeared in no rush to make a formal announcement. Scott Walker, perhaps the front runner in the race, still hasn’t formally announced his candidacy and there’s no telling when he might do so.
A formal announcement at this point is nothing more than a trivial formality. Cruz, Paul and Walker have been campaigning and engaging in the sort of activities one engages in when running for President. They’ve been doing this for months, arguably since the midterm elections. There has never been any doubt that Cruz, Paul and Walker were going to run. There’s little doubt that Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum will be running. The legal distinction between an exploratory committee and a campaign committee may matter to the FEC but in the political world it doesn’t matter at all. The 2016 primary season has been under way for some time, the only people who disagree are the paper pushers in the Federal government.
There is one consistent thing about the slate of 99% certain to run candidates. All but one of them is a conservative, either appealing to Christian evangelicals, Tea Party conservatives or Tea Party libertarians. Bush being the lone exception, it is without question that he has the support of the establishment moderate wing of the party. In fact, Bush has been openly hostile to conservatives on the campaign trail. The problem for conservatives is that this election is shaping up just like 2008 and 2012. There are too many conservatives running and only one establishment moderate. In a lust for power, half a dozen or more conservatives are willing to sacrifice the country in a vain attempt to obtain power for themselves.
Some of these people shouldn’t even run. In fact, they should step back and act as kingmakers. The endorsement of someone like Mike Huckabee would significantly help one of the other conservative candidates. Huckabee doesn’t have what it takes to win the nomination. He hasn’t been in office in years, he’s selling magic pills for diabetes on the internet wherein he looks like a rabid snake oil salesman. Nevertheless, he has a loyal base that likely would vote for whoever he endorses. There’s power in king making, a lot more than losing a race for President at Huckabee’s age. We could say the same thing about Rick Santorum. He hasn’t been in office in nearly a decade, he got annihilated the last time he ran for US Senate. He was the conservative of last resort against Romney in 2012, he really wasn’t a good candidate. Yet he’s likely to cater to his own vanity and run in 2016, further diluting the conservative vote. Bush must be thrilled.
At least Cruz and Paul have more base support than Huckabee and Santorum. Having said that, do Republicans really believe the country is going to elect a first term Senator again? Obama didn’t exactly work out very well and while Cruz and Paul are obviously better than Obama, most of the country have no idea who these two Senators are or where they come from. In the last century our country has only elected a sitting Senator twice and only one of those times did a sitting Senator defeat a candidate with executive experience. Kennedy’s victory over Vice President Nixon in 1960 was the lone exception, otherwise this country has elected Governors or Vice Presidents. In other words, the country has a tendency to elect men with executive experience. While Cruz is magnificent on any number of issues, he’s going to have a very difficult time convincing people that a first term Senator should be the Commander in Chief. Especially after eight years of Obama. Paul has the same problem. If only we could get rid of some of these candidates, Jeb Bush could be defeated. Unfortunately this is unlikely to happen.
Cruz and Walker will quickly rise above the rest, if prior primaries are anything to go by. The pattern is fairly consistent. Primary voters, dissatisfied with the establishment candidate, look at each contender in turn, raising them in the polls, but the candidate reveals himself to be unworthy, non-conservative, or just plain goofy, and they fall back to the bottom. Because they have been truly awful candidates.
This will not happen with Cruz and Walker in the mix. They are just too good. So it will, rapidly, become a 3-way race, with the two conservatives shaping the tone and tenor of the debate. Bush’s campaign slogan will be, essentially, “hey, look at me”, while the adults battle it out.
I’m pretty sure Walker isn’t running on amnesty, in fact he’s walked back his support of it. Reagan has admitted a number of political blunders, including amnesty, no-fault divorce and support for abortion funding. The point being you’re never going to come up with a perfect candidate. Each candidate is wrong on some issues and they all make mistakes while in office.
I hope you’re right that Cruz and Walker rise above the rest. I’m confident Walker will, he’s a skilled campaigner. Cruz I’m less sure about, mostly because he’s only run one meaningful statewide race and that was for the GOP nomination for Senate.
I will object to one thing you said. I would not refer to Cruz and Walker as the only “adults” in the race. We should not stoop to the level of the left (including Jeb Bush), which constantly refer to themselves as adults and to anyone who disagrees with them as children. We have better arguments than the left, we don’t need to join them in making unnecessary and meaningless attacks on our opponents. Our attacks on Jeb Bush are much more potent when we aren’t calling him names.
I only see one - TED CRUZ!
I agree that Walker needs to state his position on amnesty and the border. He seems to have backed off of some previous comments that appeared to support some form of amnesty. I would like him to give a speech laying out his position.
That’s why we lose elections, only our guy is a conservative and the rest are heretics to the cause and unworthy of even the slightest consideration.
A lot of these guys are ringers, posing as anti-establishment when they are really in sync with the RNC's crypto (and not so crypto) liberal agenda. Marco Rubio is the perfect example of this - an establishment moderate posing as a Tea Party type. Luckily his gig was up when he shouted his support for amnesty from the rooftops.
You have to draw the line somewhere, whether it's over a single issue or the big picture. Otherwise you take this line of argument to the point that candidates like Jeb Bush become "acceptable."
Not only will Jebbie never get your vote he will never get ours and he will never win the presidency.
At this point, I don't care what Walker says about amnesty. He's already said too much. Once someone has tipped their hand, there's no way to forget what you've seen. Cruz is the only one (so far) who is upfront about being against it. Even if Walker comes up with some wishy-washy anti-amnesty statement, it won't matter. We'll know he's just veering right the way McCain is doing in AZ because he's running for re-election.
It's too bad, because Walker is an appealing fellow who is right on lots of things. And enough with comparing today's amnesty of God knows how many illegals with the smattering that Reagan legalized. Sadly we've reached a point where Regan's greatest mistake is now seen as a virtue among GOPE types.
It is going to be a battle between Cruz, Walker and Bush. They will represent the right, middle, and left of the Republican party, respectively.
Bush will lead in fundraising, but Cruz will have the heart of the core of the party. Walker, if he doesn’t screw up, could be the compromise candidate.
If we nominate Cruz, we will win the White House no matter who is the opponent. If we nominate Walker, it is a toss up. If we nominate Bush, we will have our asses handed to us, especially if the Democrats nominate someone other than Clinton.
There are more issues out there than amnesty. The problem I have with Cruz is that he hasn’t accomplished anything in the Senate. There isn’t a single bill that he’s pushed through the Senate successfully. You could have said the same thing about Obama back in 2007. If Cruz can’t work with other Senators to get a bill passed, what makes you think he’ll be successful as President?
Why do you think Cruz wins the White House hands down if he gets the nomination? I think he wins if he gets the nomination, I feel the same way about Walker. I can see Cruz losing though, in part because he’s not really experienced as a campaigner. Cruz can run a campaign in a primary but he’s never had to run a serious campaign against a Democrat. No one can question Walker’s ability to campaign against the left, his three wins in Wisconsin speak for themselves.
We will agree though that Bush would lose, probably no matter who the Democrats nominate. His brother will impede his ability to obtain independent votes, his views will keep conservatives at home.
I’m also lost how Walker represents the middle of the GOP. Union busting isn’t really associated with being a moderate.
Yes, this is how the RINO wing always wins, the Conservatives field about 6 candidates and split the vote.
You cannot seem to grasp that amnesty is a deal breaker. Amnesty will be the beginning of unchecked illegal immigration forever. It won't matter who runs for anything if the republic has turned into Mexico, Jr.
You answered your own question about freshman senators by the example of Obama. He hasn't accomplished much, has he?
I think that he is Reagan-esque in his oratory. He is very smart. His conservative principles are solid.
To top it off, for the mushy/feel good middle, voting for the first Hispanic President would be a plus. Might even negate the "first Woman President" vote, especially if our VP is a woman.
I still feel that a strong conservative clearly and elequently voicing conservative principles will win the general election. A Hispanic background is just icing on the cake.
Crowded field? The others should drop out now that Ted is here.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.