Posted on 02/22/2016 7:21:54 AM PST by Rusty0604
Ted Cruz had the most disappointing Saturday night following the conclusion of the South Carolina primary.
The Texas senator was the candidate considered in the best position to pull off an upset and defeat Donald Trump in the Palmetto State.
Furthermore, Trump earned the most votes from evangelicals — the demographic that’s supposed to serve as Cruz’s core constituency.
Trump’s message is entirely secular and is not just worlds apart from Cruz, but also from Marco Rubio and John Kasich. The two remaining establishment favorites love to talk about their faith and tinge their rhetoric with religious allusions.
Cruz himself isn’t too different from his more mainstream opponents in his own speeches — but his surrogates are another story.
Phil Robertson stumped for the Texan in South Carolina by implying sexually-transmitted diseases are God’s punishment for not keeping the faith.
Besides wondering if Scalia’s death was God’s way of telling America to vote for Cruz and fasting for the senator, Glenn Beck said earlier in February that his preferred candidate was the man to lead the United States through the rapture.
Cruz’s wife and preacher father Rafael have also engaged in similar rhetoric suggesting the presidential candidate has God’s backing.
These statements are only likely to appeal to the declining demographic of churchgoing evangelicals while at the same time alienating the other parts of the party. Not only that, but the religiously-devout seem to care more about how a candidate will steer the economy and protect the nation than they do about how well a given contender can recite scripture.
It’s a fact that our society is becoming more secular and considers religion as more of a private matter than a public obligation. You can only change that through the culture, not the ballot box.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Cruz’s mistake was when he suddenly started acting like a traveling evangelist to woo the evangelical crowd.
With that said, Rick Tyler, the Senior Communications Advisor should be fired.
The hub-bub with Ben Carson was blown way out of perspective.
However this latest thing with Rubio and nut-job Beck 'Fasting for Cruz' is just ridiculous.
But Bible-Thumping with nut job Beck is turning Voters away.
Cruz did the Church Lady thing on the bet it would help in SC.
It didn’t and possibly ended his political future.
Cruz should have never let Beck get within 10 miles of his campaign.
You don’t win elections preaching to the Choir loft.
His whole campaign is just creepy now.
“You don’t win elections preaching to the Choir loft.”
Did I even comment on this post?
Cruz should have placed a very strong second in SC at a minimum...he really should have won the stater if he's going to win anywhere...but to claim his utter and complete failure in the state as 'remarkable, and above expectations' is utterly delusional. It is laughable. He won Zero counties and won zero delegates. Truly delusional.
What this development might signal is a new shift in the Republican Party. As America becomes more secular, so is the GOP..
I think this guy couldn’t be more wrong. If any part of the GOP is becoming secular, it’s the younger people, but the younger people was one of the few groups that Cruz managed to win in SC.
The part of this article I find telling is that Cruz lost the evangelicals who don’t go to church regularly, but won the ones who do. By no means would I say that people who attend church are all a bunch of mindless sheep or anything, but it stands to reason that if their pastors and preachers tell or hint to them to go out and vote for Cruz, they would certainly be more inclined to do so.
Many people who don’t attend church did at one time, then left because being told what to do all the time and being judged by your pastor with not much recourse when you disagree with something he said or some tenant of your church gets old. My wife’s family left their church for reasons like that. So Ted Cruz sermonizing to home-practicing evangelicals might have indeed backfired entirely. Perhaps it’s possible he reminded them of why they don’t go to church anymore, and it’s possible that his surrogates dialing up the tent-preacher act wasn’t much of a factor, if at all.
Clearly pandering to the evangelical vote.
I've got no issue whatsoever with anyone stating their religious views, but Cruz oversold it, attempting to round up the evangelicals.
I like Cruz. He would make a great Supreme Court Justice.
I don’t remember ever thinking Cruz was an Evangelist when he was running for Senate.
I am a “hard core” Evangelical and I happily voted for Cruz in my state’s early voting, not because he is also an Evangelical, but because he is a Constitutionalist. I will vote for him again if I have the opportunity to do so.
However I find much good analysis and counsel in the attached article. No candidate should hide their faith, but Cruz’s campaign surrogates have put way too much emphasis on religiosity in a nation which no longer takes faith seriously; much of that religiosity is simply absurd and (in my opinion) counter-Biblical. The Cruz surrogates have also committed way too many stupid unforced errors, which unfortunately call into question Cruz’s skill in choosing subordinates.
I’m hoping against hope that he can do well in the SEC, but were I to bet I’d put my money on Rubio at this point.
Everybody fightin to be first loser.
I downloaded a copy of the powerpoint deck “Cruz - Can He Win” that was put up by his PAC last year. It makes the case for how Cruz was the natural choise to win the Evangelicals and in the right-leaning South, including one whole slide on “Ted showing great strength in must-win South Carolina”.
Of course he totally underestimated Donald J. Trump. And totally misunderstood that the reason evangelicals did not vote for Romney wasn’t because he wasn’t a rock-ribbed conservative, but because he didn’t have good solutions to the problems they cared about. Of course they claim Cruz would win on “wedge issues” such as immigration, national defense, repealing Obamacare, 2nd amendment, and common core - but Trump has effectively co-opted every one of them.
Cruz’s entire campaign was based on being the best conservative candidate, but many of us said then that only met 1/2 of the Buckley Rule: he is not electable.
Cruz could do SO much better if he confined himself to the Natural Law aspects of the founding principles. American Christianity is so fractured that he automatically walks a minefield when he so narrows his direct appeal to one subset.
He needs to do something like JFK did to put to rest the valid concerns he has raised by his ill advised sectarian approach.
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