Is Ted Cruz The Republican Who'll Do What Others Couldn't?

Investor's Business Daily ^ | April 1, 2015 | George F. Will

[2ndDivisionVet]

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was born in 1970, six years after events refuted a theory on which he is wagering his candidacy.

The 1964 theory was that many millions of conservatives abstained from voting because the Republican Party did not nominate sufficiently deep-dyed conservatives. So if in 1964 the party would choose someone like Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, hitherto dormant conservatives would join the electorate in numbers sufficient for victory.

This theory was slain by a fact — actually, 15,951,378 facts. That was the difference between the 43,129,566 votes that President Lyndon Johnson received and the 27,178,188 that Goldwater got in winning six states.

The sensible reason for nominating Goldwater was not because he could win: As Goldwater understood, Americans still recovering from the Kennedy assassination were not going to have a third president in 14 months. The realistic reason was to turn the GOP into a conservative weapon for a future assault on the ramparts of power.

Hence in September 1964, William F. Buckley told an audience of young conservatives to anticipate Goldwater's defeat because he had been nominated "before we had time properly to prepare the ground." Goldwater's candidacy had, however, planted "seeds of hope, which will flower on a great November day in the future." Sixteen Novembers later, they did.

Today, however, there is no need to nominate Cruz in order to make the GOP conservative. Cruz sits in a Senate that has no Republicans akin to the liberals Goldwater served with — New York's Jacob Javits, Massachusetts' Edward Brooke, Illinois' Charles Percy, New Jersey's Clifford Case, California's Thomas Kuchel.

When Jeb Bush, the most conservative governor of a large state since Ronald Reagan (by some metrics — taxes, school choice — Bush was a more conservative governor than Reagan), is called a threat to conservatism...

[867V309]

Is Ted Cruz The Republican Who'll Do What Others Couldn't?

I don't know about that, but he's certainly the Republican doing what others won't.

[JRandomFreeper]

His agenda is showing.

That's ok, mine is too. Cruz or forget it.

/johnny

[sickoflibs]

You are a zealot for sure LOL

[2ndDivisionVet]

I don’t know how to play solitaire.

[stilloftyhenight]

“I don’t know about that, but he’s certainly the Republican doing what others won’t.”

Love your comment, 86!

[SoConPubbie]

George needs to change his middle name to “Pretzel”.

[Deagle]

Maybe labels have changed...

To me,

Jeb is a liberal Republican. Others fall into this category (several others).

Cruz is a Conservative Republican. Others fall into this category (not so many though).

Republican (it’s meaning) has changed considerably.
Democrat (has changed to Progressive).

[hosepipe]

Goldwater speech..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzrHR9-LdTM

[TexasFreeper2009]

The article inadvertently points about why nominating anyone BUT a true conservative will result in a loss.

Only someone truly inspirational (like Cruz) can break up the Obama coalition and reshuffle the map enough to ensure a Republican victory. ANY candidate put forward by the Republicans that tries to play it safe with a 50+1 strategy is doomed to fail.

[hosepipe]

right

[okie01]

Cruz sits in a Senate that has no Republicans akin to the liberals Goldwater served with — New York's Jacob Javits, Massachusetts' Edward Brooke, Illinois' Charles Percy, New Jersey's Clifford Case, California's Thomas Kuchel.

That may be true.

But the problem today is that the likes of McCain, McConnell and the party establishment have no ideology. They aren't liberal, they aren't conservative. They're conniving, self-serving, compliant...and ultimately corrupt.

Confronted by an intensely partisan and un-American Democrat party, they are being slowly co-opted and subsequently subsumed.

Will, having lived beside them in DC for so long, can't see this.

[Yosemitest]

I agree/
But it will take a complete FLUSH of the "ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS" down the toilet, before Ted Cruz can defeat the VILE DemocRATS COMMUNISTS !

[InterceptPoint]

Today, however, there is no need to nominate Cruz in order to make the GOP conservative. Cruz sits in a Senate that has no Republicans akin to the liberals Goldwater served with — New York’s Jacob Javits, Massachusetts’ Edward Brooke, Illinois’ Charles Percy, New Jersey’s Clifford Case, California’s Thomas Kuchel.
++++
Oops. Georgie needs to do his homework. He can start by typing the following into Google:

Mark Kirk wiki

I’m sure there are other examples. How about the Senate Majority Leader?

[matthew fuller]

"But will they come when you do call for them?"

We will come.

[867V309]

Love your comment, 86!

Thank you.

When Cruz "outed" the GOPe I knew he was genuine.

He revealed, as STRATEGY, that GOPe Senators voted FOR cloture (60 votes needed to pass: GOP minority had an opportunity to kill the bill) and then voting AGAINST it, when a simple majority was needed, and the Rats had the majority.

This had the double GOPe win of passing a Demorat bill, and giving GOPe Senators a boost in their Conservative voting ratings for "voting against it."

Cruz was a GOPe pariah after that, if not before. No GOPe will ever get my vote, including my numbskull John Mica (billions for SlumRail) representative.

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

If someone like George F. Will can’t see that Jeb Bush will LOSE simply because he’s a Bush — and I’m not saying that’s good or bad, simply that it’s true — then I question the rest of his analysis.

[rhinohunter]

It’s funny to listen to the talkings heads draw all sorts of inferences about the inelectability of Conservatives based on Goldwater’s shellacking. Goldwater lost for one reason and one reason only: the assassination of JFK.
LBJ was going to slaughter whomever the GOP nominated no matter what.

[stilloftyhenight]

George Will always supports the GOPe. No surprise here.
He is positively predictable and rarely adds anything new to a discussion.

Bush will not be POTUS. It isn’t just his name, it’s his progressive agenda.

[jobim]

I knew this would crumble into a bash-GeorgeWill-fest. I suggest we look at his conclusion:

Any candidacy premised on conceding those 18 states involves a risky thread-the-needle path to not much more than 270 electoral votes. Writing in Politico, Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik notes that in the six elections since 1992, a majority of states have not been "remotely competitive."

Thirty-one plus the District of Columbia (they currently have 344 electoral votes) have voted for the same party in those elections. Another eight (71 electoral votes) have voted for the same party in five of the six. This is why, Sosnik says, "almost two-thirds of the $896 million spent on television" by the two candidates in 2012 was spent in five states that have been competitive since 1992 — Ohio, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Virginia.

The Republican nominee must crack the ice that has frozen the electoral map. Cruz cannot do that by getting more votes from traditional Republican constituencies.

I have given Cruz money twice this week, so I hardly am defending Will in general, but his electoral construct needs to be pondered. We still have much time.