Posted on 02/13/2014 4:51:45 PM PST by SeekAndFind
There’s no man or woman in red-state America these days with more power than Cruz to set a new conservative litmus test. But c’mon: How many of you need to be formally warned at this point by your favorite Republican that the House is looking to sell out border hawks on immigration reform? It’s like blaming Rand Paul for turning libertarians against the NSA. He plays a useful role in bringing attention to the issue, but those people turned on their own initiative ages ago. Same here.
Cruz won’t mind being blamed for this one, though.
House Republicans who supported the “principles” of immigration reform floated by Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, late last month grumbled Tuesday that the plan was dead on arrival because Cruz blasted it as “amnesty,” spurring a blizzard of negative phone calls to House Republicans…
Later that day [on January 30th, when the House GOP released its immigration principles], while Boehner was closeted with colleagues miles from the nation’s capital, Cruz used back-to-back television appearances to invoke the politically charged word “amnesty” to characterize the legalization offered by Boehner’s plan.
By the time the GOP caucus broke up and Boehner headed back to Capitol Hill on Jan. 31, the House speaker was backtracking. Republican lawmakers so distrusted President Obama’s readiness to enforce any immigration law that GOP lawmakers would not support immigration reform before the 2014 midterm congressional elections in November, Boehner declared.
Asked about his influential remarks Tuesday, Cruz said the Boehner plan was “inconsistent with the rule of law” and “a political mistake,” adding that he was “glad to see Republicans in the House agreed.”
Would any tea-party Republicans in the House have embraced the leadership’s immigration plan if Cruz had kept quiet? It’s not pressure from big-name conservatives that keeps them in line, it’s the fact that they come from overwhelmingly red districts and know what backing amnesty would mean for their primary chances. The more interesting thought experiment is what would have happened if Cruz had shocked the world and declared that Boehner’s plan sounded promising. That might have shaken loose some conservative votes for amnesty; there’s no sturdier political cover on the right at the moment than being able to say that Ted Cruz supports your position. I wonder if he’s ever tempted to do it, if only to bigfoot rivals like Rubio and Rand Paul by showing them he can bring righties around on an immigration deal to an extent that they can’t. Or maybe he doubts that he even has that much cachet. If Rubio’s tea-party cred could be incinerated in one stroke by trying to lead on this issue, why on earth would Cruz touch it?
His next conservative venture, incidentally, is the State Marriage Defense Act, which he introduced with Mike Lee yesterday. That’s a response both to the Supreme Court’s Windsor decision last year, striking down part of DOMA, and to Holder’s announcement earlier this week that the DOJ will begin acknowledging same-sex marriages as legitimate for federal legal purposes (e.g., invoking the spousal privilege during federal trials) regardless of whether the underlying state law recognizes them or not. Cruz’s and Lee’s bill would force the feds to follow state marriage law as guidance on that. It’s going nowhere in the Senate, needless to say, but it’s a smart bit of politics in both tackling a subject of social conservative concern and proposing a federalist solution to it that centrists can live with.
I LOVE THIS MAN!
“...But unless all Conservatives coalesce behind ONE conservative candidate and support him or her through thick and thin, the RINOs will nominate “Jeb” Bush in a replay of 2012....”
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I agree if you substitute “RINO of choice” for Jeb Bush. You’ve nailed the ESSENCE of the 2016 campaign. ALL CONSERVATIVES NEED TO RALLY AROUND TED CRUZ FROM THE BEGINNING. Let’s let multiple RINOs run and split the RINO vote for a change-—no more conservative circular firing squads. Let’s ignore the PHONY conservatives such as Huckabee who may enter to help split the conservative vote.
And NO conservative should support the AMNESTY PROMOTING FAUX conservatives such as Rubio and Paul Ryan.
TED CRUZ FOR PRESIDENT 2016!!!
The leader of the GOP as well as the Democrat Party is Barack Obama. We now have a one party ruled nation with any dissenters considered to be Enemies of the State. The entire security of this nation as well as it’s political system has been completely compromised beyond all hope.
Cruz saved the Republican Party against the wishes of the GOPe
I’m actually conflicted
Ted Cruz is just one of US. What this really tells you is what the House “Republicans (In Name Only) think about US.
Note to House Republicans (In Name Only). Fear US! We are tired of your knifes in our backs. It ain’t just Ted. He’s got a frickin’ posse. We won’t stop even if Ted does. FOAD!!!
Since Ted Cruz is the one doing the most to rub the GOPe nose in their own poop, I think he should top the list for everyone
That is essentially our Republican Rep. Steve Pearce's position here in NM. He is the only Republican from NM in Congress and his district borders Mexico, but he wins re-election for a couple of reasons, the main one being that his district holds the oil and natural gas that provide good jobs and funds the state. All but the most jaded Democrats recognize that the Dems and enviros in the rest of the state would like to shut down the industry. When jobs are on the line, they vote for the politician who will work to keep their job.
Regarding illegals he recognizes they are here, currently working and that we will never have the will to forcibly send them back. So his solution is to give them a "red" card to let them work legally (and pay taxes), penalize the employers who have workers without "red" cards and paying them off the books. Up front he wants the Feds to secure the border and later, if they want to become citizens, they get to the back of the line.
Of course the Dems want citizenship for them only so they will vote for Dems to stay in power. It really is that simple.
Cruzing with Ted!
And NO conservative should support the AMNESTY PROMOTING FAUX conservatives such as Rubio and Paul Ryan.
TED CRUZ FOR PRESIDENT 2016!!!
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Needs repeating.
Cruz’n to the White House in 2016!
Good.
+1
Ted understands EXACTLY why the President, the Dems / lefties / progressives, and the RINOs are pushing so hard to ram this down our throat and put them in power for decades to come and they really don’t like it thae understands this...
It’s John I. Cornyn, III, and people in TX must like him for unexplained reasons; namely, lack of knowledge.
Will you still be saying that on March 5?
Amnesty has NOT been killed. It is merely in hibernation.
Actually John Bonehead is a climber
Ted Cruz is a natural born leader.
House RINOs: “Ted Cruz is doing what he got elected to do. And we are unhappy with him.”
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