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Ted Cruz: An isolated figure in a minority of the minority
The Washington Post's Right Turn Blog ^ | December 16, 2014 | Jennifer Rubin, Queen of the NeoCons

Posted on 12/16/2014 11:02:24 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

The National Review reports:

To hell with the independents. That’s not usually the animating principle of a presidential campaign, but for Ted Cruz’s, it just might be.

His strategists aren’t planning to make a big play for so-called independent voters in the general election if Cruz wins the Republican nomination. Several of the senator’s top advisers said that Cruz sees a path to victory that relies instead on increasing conservative turnout, trying to attract votes from groups that have tended to favor Democrats (Jews, Hispanics and millennials), and, in the words of one Cruz strategist, “not getting killed with independents.”

Either Cruz is not as smart as some people say, or he has decided to give up on being a serious national Republican in favor of becoming the next Sarah Palin. I’m with Henry Olsen — and others who can do math — who is quoted as saying this is a “fantasy.” (“The Republican base, he says, simply isn’t large enough to win an election nationally, and the Republican nominee must ‘energize establishment Republicans and people who don’t call themselves conservatives.’ “)

In 2012 and 2008, Republicans were 32 percent of the general electorate. In George Bush’s reelection in 2004, that number got as high as 37 percent. In 1980, Cruz’s hero Ronald Reagan won with only 28 percent of the electorate identifying as Republicans because he got 56 percent of independents — Cruz doesn’t want any of them, I guess — and 27 percent of Democrats. Cruz, or any Republican, has zero chance of becoming president without votes of non-Republicans. Cruz’s hero shouldn’t be Reagan but Barry Goldwater....

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Campaign News; Issues; Parties; U.S. Senate
KEYWORDS: 2016; cruz; gop; independents; jenniferrubin; republicans; teaparty; tedcruz
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If it hadn't been for the Kennedy assassination, Goldwater might've won. The Messiah, Lincoln or Washington couldn't have beat LBJ that year, and anybody who has ever taken even one Community College PoliSci course knows that, Jennifer.
1 posted on 12/16/2014 11:02:24 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Who would pay any attention to this witch?


2 posted on 12/16/2014 11:04:18 AM PST by Paladin2
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
“The Republican base, he says, simply isn’t large enough to win an election nationally,

Well let's find out, Rubin...!

3 posted on 12/16/2014 11:04:29 AM PST by Timber Rattler (Just say NO! to RINOS and the GOP-E)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Actually, if you take the 22 who voted w Ted this weekend and you add 7 of the 9 the new GOP Senators, you will find that total is 29 of 54 GOP Senators to be seated in January.

That would be “The majority of the majority”.


4 posted on 12/16/2014 11:07:45 AM PST by G Larry (Amnesty imposes SLAVE WAGES on LEGAL immigrants & minorities)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Jennifer’s pretty ignorant. The PJ Media article on “Catalist” from a few months back clearly shows that Obama won in 2012 by ditching indies and focusing on driving up his base turnout. It was both cheaper and more effective than moving towards the center.


5 posted on 12/16/2014 11:07:51 AM PST by tanknetter
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Two Reagan landslides mean nothing to the establishment.
6 posted on 12/16/2014 11:08:35 AM PST by lormand (Inside every liberal is a dung slinging monkey)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Another clueless self-proclaimed conservative.


7 posted on 12/16/2014 11:09:24 AM PST by exnavy (Fish or cut bait ...Got ammo, Godspeed.)
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To: lormand

Or Eisenhower, Nixon and both Bush’s. While those men weren’t as conservative as Reagan, by any means, they were portrayed that way in the press, which means most voters assumed they were.


8 posted on 12/16/2014 11:11:55 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I hope he goes third party. I dont want any part of the establishment. He is the best man for the country. The republican socialists screw the conservatives in primaries that are “winner take all” designed to pop out some socialist like romney with 22% of the vote while the idiot conservative fight it out with 6 candidates. ITS RIGGED!!I dont want to play any more!


9 posted on 12/16/2014 11:12:39 AM PST by iowacornman (Romney is the father of government health care.)
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To: tanknetter

The tactic is to inflame the base to motivate them to vote.


10 posted on 12/16/2014 11:13:16 AM PST by Paladin2
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To: exnavy

Jennifer Rubin is the house “conservative” at the Washington Post, their equivalent (and just as phony) as David Brooks of the NY Times. They put these phonies out to make it appear that they are balanced; far, far less so than Fox News.


11 posted on 12/16/2014 11:13:38 AM PST by laconic
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To: Paladin2

This is the Palinization of Cruz. That means I am being Palinized. The republicans lost me last weekend.


12 posted on 12/16/2014 11:13:50 AM PST by Texas Songwriter ( Iwe)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The Palinization of Ted Cruz picks up furious pace by the seig-heiling sycophants of the Ruling Class.

Does anyone still not understand that these ‘Republicans” are simply Democrats that have infiltrated the party and the leadership?

We now have a Roman Senate that just funded Caesar.

The Republic is no more.


13 posted on 12/16/2014 11:13:56 AM PST by INVAR ("Fart for liberty, fart for freedom and fart proudly!" - Benjamin Franklin)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Does she have anything to write about besides telling us how powerless TC is... lol


14 posted on 12/16/2014 11:14:31 AM PST by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: laconic

She is an obvious fake.


15 posted on 12/16/2014 11:15:08 AM PST by exnavy (Fish or cut bait ...Got ammo, Godspeed.)
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To: INVAR

Is Elizabeth “Fauxcahontas” Warren the horse that was made a senator?


16 posted on 12/16/2014 11:15:14 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
The underlying, unspoken assumption in this article (and the MSM in general) is that "independents" are "moderate."

I don't think that's true (in fact has been disproved often, e.g., Reagan), and if the assumption is not true, then Rubin's whole argument falls apart.

If Ted Cruz doesn't become president, it won't be because of independents, it'll be because of the GOPe.

17 posted on 12/16/2014 11:15:30 AM PST by MUDDOG
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To: tanknetter

And the National Review article she references gives both the Obama 2012 campaign and the Bush 2004 campaign as examples of campaigns that won by appealing to the base rather than moving to the middle. Apparently she forgot those 2 examples - either that or she didn’t read the article.


18 posted on 12/16/2014 11:15:40 AM PST by vbmoneyspender
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To: GeronL

You noticed that, too? She has stepped-up her column output, it seems, and EVERY ONE that I can find is about how Ted Cruz is already dead-in-the-water, everyone hates him, his poll numbers suck and his halitosis is driving the capitol building mad.


19 posted on 12/16/2014 11:18:41 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Let them speculate all they want. It proves nothing.


20 posted on 12/16/2014 11:19:29 AM PST by CyberAnt ("The hope and changey stuff did not work, even a smidgen.")
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