No
Posted on 03/26/2014 5:37:47 PM PDT by BarnacleCenturion
Rand Paul is the most intriguing — and for Democrats, perhaps the most frightening — figure in today’s Republican Party. The Kentucky senator, who is more than flirting with a 2016 presidential run, is making a smart play for the millennial generation that was key to President Obama’s twin victories and that his own party has convincingly repelled.
Paul’s unlikely pilgrimage to the progressive precincts of the University of California at Berkeley offered the most convincing evidence so far that he is serious about carving out this (sorry, President Clinton) third way space — and a demonstration of his potential appeal to this lost demographic, more attuned to personality than party.
Watch the video of Paul at Berkeley the other day, and you think: This guy doesn’t even look like a Republican, with his jeans and cowboy boots, his tie-but-no-jacket look, his mop-in-need-of-cutting coiffure. Mitt Romney tried to rock those jeans, but no 20-something — no 30-something, actually — looked at his Brylcreemed hair and thought: I want to hang out with this guy.
More important, listen to the substance, and it is difficult to detect much Republican in Paul’s remarks. Indeed, his cross-brand pitch was explicit, and exquisitely attuned to the you’re-not-the-boss-of-me ethos of the younger generation. “Now you may be a Republican or a Democrat or a Libertarian,” Paul began his speech. “I’m not here to tell you what to be.”
(Excerpt) Read more at m.washingtonpost.com ...
Washington Post, enough said.
They do not want a republican that can win like Ted or Sarah.
Intriguing to the WaPo?
Looks like Paul got into the race too soon. THey’ll be setting him up for a takedown after the primary. By that time they’d have figured out every weakness and every mistake he ever made.
He is so unwise.
IMHO, Paul is the most ‘viable’ GOP candidate. And besides, he’s the only candidate that would sign laws to neuter future presidents.
“This guy doesn’t even look like a Republican....”
That is because he is neither a Republican or true conservative. Rand Paul is a Libertarian that has infiltrated the GOP like a parasitic worm. He needs to go away. IF he wants to run for POTUS...he should do it as a Libertarian and stop messing up the GOP.
I thought Romney was the most frightening for the democrats. That was what the media told us... or was that just 2011.
He’s no better than his father.
The man’s politics are becoming more defined as he calls on us to move the party platform left, wins the approval of the GOPe, and the favor of the media.
All those people can’t be wrong.
Romney never received standing ovation at UCBerkeley or any
other liberal venue.
Actually no republican or democrat since Eisenhower received standing ovations from a very conservative crowd like CPAC and a very liberal crowd like at UC Berkeley.
So indeed Rand Paul is a unique, and politically astute dude.
The liberal MSM will have the hardest time vilifying this dude. He has made no stupid statements to be exploited by the MSM.
My finger is down my throat.
No
Education
Cruz attended high school at Faith West Academy in Katy, Texas,[26] and later graduated from Second Baptist High School in Houston as valedictorian in 1988.[11] During high school, Cruz participated in a Houston-based group called the Free Market Education Foundation where Cruz learned about free-market economic philosophers such as Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Frédéric Bastiat and Ludwig von Mises.[20] The program was run by Rolland Storey and Cruz entered the program at the age of 13.[18]
Cruz graduated cum laude from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1992.[2][5] While at Princeton, he competed for the American Whig-Cliosophic Society’s Debate Panel and won the top speaker award at both the 1992 U.S. National Debating Championship and the 1992 North American Debating Championship.[27] In 1992, he was named U.S. National Speaker of the Year and Team of the Year (with his debate partner, David Panton).[27] Cruz was also a semi-finalist at the 1995 World Universities Debating Championship, making him Princeton’s highest-ranked debater at the championship.[28][29] Princeton’s debate team later named their annual novice championship after Cruz.[28]
Cruz’s senior thesis on the separation of powers, titled “Clipping the Wings of Angels,” draws its inspiration from a passage attributed to President James Madison: “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” Cruz argued that the drafters of the Constitution intended to protect the rights of their constituents, and the last two items in the Bill of Rights offered an explicit stop against an all-powerful state. Cruz wrote: “They simply do so from different directions. The Tenth stops new powers, and the Ninth fortifies all other rights, or non-powers.”[24][30]
After graduating from Princeton, Cruz attended Harvard Law School, graduating magna cum laude in 1995 with a Juris Doctor.[2][31] While at Harvard Law, Cruz was a primary editor of the Harvard Law Review, and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and a founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review.[5] Referring to Cruz’s time as a student at Harvard Law, Professor Alan Dershowitz said, “Cruz was off-the-charts brilliant.”[12][32][33][34][35][36] At Harvard Law, Cruz was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics.[37]
Cruz currently serves on the Board of Advisors of the Texas Review of Law and Politics.[37][38]
Legal Career
Clerkships
Cruz served as a law clerk to J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 1995[4][37] and William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States in 1996.[2] Cruz was the first Hispanic ever to clerk for a Chief Justice of the United States.[39]
Private practice
After Cruz finished his clerkships, he took a position with Cooper, Carvin & Rosenthal, which is now known as Cooper & Kirk, LLC, from 1997 to 1998.[40]
In 1998, Cruz served as private counsel for Congressman John Boehner during Boehner’s lawsuit against Congressman Jim McDermott for releasing a tape recording of a Boehner telephone conversation.[41]
Bush Administration
Cruz joined the George W. Bush presidential campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser, advising then-Governor George W. Bush on a wide range of policy and legal matters, including civil justice, criminal justice, constitutional law, immigration, and government reform.[40]
Cruz assisted in assembling the Bush legal team, devise strategy, and draft pleadings for filing with the Supreme Court of Florida and U.S. Supreme Court, the specific case being Bush v. Gore, during the 2000 Florida presidential recounts, leading to two successful decisions for the Bush team.[37][42]
After President Bush took office, Cruz served as an associate deputy attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department[2][42] and as the director of policy planning at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.[2][12][42]
Texas Solicitor General
Appointed to the office of Solicitor General of Texas by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott,[4][43] Cruz served in that position from 2003 to 2008.[20][37]
Cruz has authored more than 80 United States Supreme Court briefs and presented 43 oral arguments, including nine before the United States Supreme Court.[4][12][22] Cruz’s record of having argued before the Supreme Court nine times is more than any practicing lawyer in Texas or any current member of Congress.[44] Cruz has commented on his nine cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court: “We ended up year after year arguing some of the biggest cases in the country. There was a degree of serendipity in that, but there was also a concerted effort to seek out and lead conservative fights.”[44]
In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz drafted the amicus brief signed by attorneys general of 31 states, which said that the D.C. handgun ban should be struck down as infringing upon the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.[22][45] Cruz also presented oral argument for the amici states in the companion case to Heller before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.[22][46]
In addition to his success in Heller, Cruz has successfully defended the constitutionality of Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds before the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 5-4 in Van Orden v. Perry.[12][22][37]
In 2004, Cruz was involved in another high-profile case, which was Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow.[12][37] In Newdow, Cruz wrote a U.S. Supreme Court brief on behalf of all 50 states which argued that a non-custodial parent does not have standing in court to sue to stop a public school from requiring its students to recite of the Pledge of Allegiance.[12][37] The Supreme Court upheld the position of Cruz’s brief in a 9-0 decision.
Cruz served as lead counsel for the state and successfully defended the multiple litigation challenges to the 2003 Texas congressional redistricting plan in state and federal district courts and before the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 5-4 in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry.[37][47]
Cruz also successfully defended, in Medellin v. Texas, the State of Texas against an attempt by the International Court of Justice to re-open the criminal convictions of 51 murderers on death row throughout the United States.[4][12][22][37]
Cruz has been named by American Lawyer magazine as one of the 50 Best Litigators under 45 in America,[43][48] by The National Law Journal as one of the 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America,[49][50] and by Texas Lawyer as one of the 25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past Quarter Century.[51][52]
Private practice
After leaving the Solicitor General position in 2008, he worked in a private law firm in Houston, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, often representing corporate clients, until he was sworn in a U.S. Senator from Texas in 2013.[24][37][53] At Morgan, Lewis, he led the firm’s U.S. Supreme Court and national appellate litigation practice.[53]
In 2009, while working for Morgan, Lewis, Cruz formed and then abandoned a bid for state attorney general when the incumbent Attorney General Greg Abbott, who hired Cruz as Solicitor General, decided to run for re-election.[11]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Cruz
Isn't it interesting how concerned the MSM pretends to be over the future of the Republican Party? Truth is, it is all about controlling future election results. Early on they will set up a Republican candidate they are most comfortable doing background work on and then they will knock that candidate down during the election campaign with all manner of salacious reporting.
Could be a "Kiss of Death" moment.
Actually, I'm glad he is laying down his markers early, it makes it easier to identify early whether he belongs on any potential candidate list.
CBS-"Mitt Romney made an unannounced stop at the Colorado Conservative Political Action Conference and received a standing ovation"
Townhall.com-"Romney Receives Standing Ovation for Straight Talk at NAACP Convention"
I’ve said it and I’ll say it again:
TED CRUZ IS REAGAN X 100.
He is indeed off-the-charts brilliant. We couldn’t ask for a better conservative messenger and leader for our time.
Now where’s that poster of him in the biker garb with a cig on his lips?
Maybe for some, not so much for me.
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