Posted on 12/02/2015 12:39:37 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Sen. Ted Cruz on Tuesday night politely complimented GOP presidential rival Sen. Marco Rubio as a "charming" communicator, and then he laid into him as wrong on national security, weak on immigration and a shill for corporate lobbyists.
"If you look at Sen. Rubio's record - he's someone who I like personally, he's a friend of mine," Cruz (Texas) said on Fox News's "Hannity." "He's a very, very charming and effective communicator. But if you look at his policy record, there's a big difference between his record and mine."
Cruz then launched into a broadside against Rubio, most notably in a new line of attack that sought to tie the Florida senator to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, saying both are in the pockets of "special interests."
"People are fed up with the Washington cartel... the career politicians in both parties that get in bed with the special interests and grow and grow and grow government," Cruz said.
"And those [career politicians] are very dismayed that a president might come in who is actually a conservative that will stop the corporate welfare. Listen, there's a reason that the lobbyists are all supporting Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio. There's a reason the lobbyists are not supporting my campaign."
Cruz and Rubio have begun openly warring as both men rise in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
The freshman senators are essentially tied in the RealClearPolitics national average of polls, taking third and fourth place behind Donald Trump and Ben Carson.
As they've gained in the race, they've have sought to draw distinctions between their records on immigration and national security.
The Rubio campaign has accused Cruz of dodging questions about whether he supports a pathway to legalization for those in the country illegally. Cruz has said that problem can't be addressed until the border is secure and criminal illegal immigrants are deported.
Cruz, meanwhile, consistently points to Rubio's support for the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration bill, which included a pathway to citizenship.
On Tuesday night, Cruz repeatedly referred to the "Schumer-Rubio amnesty plan," referencing the Democratic New York senator.
"Back in 2013, when President Obama and Chuck Schumer joined with establishment Republicans in pushing a massive amnesty plan, Sen. Rubio led that fight," Cruz said. "He stood right there along side Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama. Indeed, it was the Rubio-Schumer amnesty plan."
"I made a very different decision," Cruz continued. "I stood alongside [Sens.] Jeff Sessions and Steve King and fought against amnesty to secure the border, and we ended up defeating the Rubio-Schumer amnesty plan. I am the only candidate on that debate stage who never supported amnesty and who led the fight to defeat amnesty when it was before Congress."
Rubio, meanwhile, has attacked Cruz for supporting the USA Freedom Act earlier this year, which reined in the National Security Agency's meta-data collection program.
"I stand strongly on behalf of the ability of this government to gather intelligence on our adversaries and enemies, especially terrorists, but also other nation states, those keep us safer," Rubio has said. "There are Republicans, including Sen. Cruz, who voted to weaken those programs. That's just a part of the record. It's nothing personal."
A super-PAC supporting Rubio has made a similar claim in ads running in Iowa.
"These attack ads are false, and Marco knows they're false," Cruz said. "He's trying to suggest somehow that I'm responsible for the terror attack in Paris, and it's silly. It's the natural thing a campaign does when they're nervous and see conservatives uniting behind our campaign."
Trump and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have similarly gone after Cruz for his vote on the USA Freedom Act.
"He went for the easy political vote at a time when it was a popular thing to do," Christie said on MSNBC's Morning Joe earlier this week. "With all those dead Parisians it doesn’t look so popular anymore."
Cruz has defended his vote, saying the USA Freedom Act strengthened the government's ability to track terrorists while protecting the privacy of ordinary citizens.
"Marco knows that... he thinks we'd be safer if the federal government seized your phone records and mine. I don't think that's right," said Cruz.
"The Republican Party will continue to lose presidential elections if it comes across as mean-spirited and unwelcoming toward people of color, Donald Trump tells Newsmax. Romney's solution of "self deportation" for illegal aliens made no sense and suggested that Republicans do not care about Hispanics in general, Trump says."He had a crazy policy of self deportation which was maniacal," Trump says.
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Charles Schumer raked in $9,900 in Trump cash - 23 Prominent Democrats Who Rolled In Donald Trump's Dough
Marco can smile and tap dance all he wants— but just like Newt on the couch with Pelosi— Marco embracing Schumer can not be undone.
I want to see Cruz mop the floor with the smarmy, used car salesman.
You need to remember, Donald Trump is a Real Estate developer in New York and New Jersey, you can’t get anything done in these states unless the right people get “paid”
That is why Donald donates to them, not because he believe in their cause, Donald believes in his cause (developments, permits, inspections, etc)
Donald knows the game
Why didn't he run for the NY Senate?
Good article. Thanks for posting it. Dragging Trump into it in your comment, though, makes me think you’re still frothing at the mouth.
I’m concerned and you should be too.
And this wasn’t just about getting building permits.
“......Trump donated $5,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and $20,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2006 cycle, effectively buoying the election prospects of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, respectively.
Just $1,000 of Trump’s money in the 2006 cycle went to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.”...
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/donald-trump-donations-democrats-hillary-clinton-119071
Christie says Cruz went for the easy political vote, anyone who has watched Cruz in the Senate knows he never goes for the easy political vote that is not in his character and Christie goes for the easy over and over again, he will jump into bed with obama at the drop of a hat, such is the character of both Rubio and Christie.
I listened to Rubio say he would give illegals green cards for 10 years. He didn’t say what came afterwards, so I assumed they were then open for a path to citizenship.
That is not in the best interests of the security of our nation.
Fat Bastard Cristi should not be lecturing anyone on taking the easy path. Given his own inability to stop shoving food in his mouth and the easy path of surgery versus some self control.
Why would he?
He would lose money. He makes more buying these scum
You know what 5K and 20K to Donald Trump is?
A nickel and a couple dimes
its nothing
The scandalous thing is that our politicians can be bought for so little
What angers me about Christie is that he never got any republicans elected in New Jersey, NOT A SINGLE ONE. He would rather “play ball with democrats” then get Republicans elected to solve the state’s issues. What did he get in return for being nice to the democrats? A lousy bridge scandal.....
the guy is a fool, and honestly, was the best governor NJ had in decades
That seems to be common with Republican governors in Democratic states. Maybe just getting elected is such an uphill battle that they don't have (or don't want to spend) their political capital on getting other Republicans elected. It's yet another uphill battle that may cost them the energy and momentum that they could use to get something else done.
Now that’s an insightful point. Rubio’s probably going for the bigger audience- with a focus-group-tested ‘security’ meme.
Funny thing is the freedom Act didn’t change much. It was 90+% window dressing to me. I have a rare disagreement with Cruz on it but consider it insignificant.
Marco thinks he’s going for the bigger audience, but Ted is going for the timelier one, the first two states to vote. Boosting Ted there at the expense of *others builds him momentum which can snowball. Which *others break and which way can’t be predicted perfectly, but some trends are apparent. Carson is dropping as folks notice both his many odd comments and start to see he can’t win. Those who liked him for being ‘nice,’ Christian and someone conservative would be inclined to go to either Ted or Marco with I think Ted getting more. Those who liked him for being an outsider might consider Trump, but many such would be put off by Trump’s style being so different from Ben’s. On further reflection most such would pick Ted. I don’t think there are enough Mike/Rick/John/Linda voters to collectively matter. Jeb/Chris/Carly voters should go to mostly Marco, perhaps some to Trump. But ‘their’ guys don’t recognize they’re beat and Marco can’t seem to close the sale. May they all stay in and divided! Part of the attraction of Trump is that he’s well ahead and has been there a long time in the polls. Could losing with actually voters hurt his mojo, and by how much, is hard for me to predict, but Cruz would love to test the theory.
Well, any frontrunner does get support from some people just because he’s the frontrunner but I think that Trump is not overly affected by it.
The impact of his high early polling numbers was that they obviated a lot of the initial criticisms of him.
The media would love for Cruz to “beat Trump!” in Iowa and would reward him. And he has a chance to do so and, I assume, a plan for making the most advantage of it.
But winning Iowa isn’t worth a whole lot in itself. If he does so at the price of alienating moderates it would doom his campaign!
The important goal for Cruz in the early primaries is to show he can get significant moderate support. The one poll I saw that broke down support by ideology had him doing abyssmally with ‘somewhat conservative’ and ‘moderate’ voters.
He needs more than half of them to support him.
My guess is Cruz would get a quarter to half of Carson’s supporters (depending on those moderate voters) and Trump and Rubio each a quarter.
ROFL. The only use I see Cruz having for the moderates in the early primaries is as butts of jokes. He uses them a lot that way. His goal is to unite all the varieties of conservatives behind him and get them out to vote. He'll need some squishy moderates in the fall, but will just need to look younger, cooler, smarter and more trustworthy to beat Hillary for them then.
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