Posted on 03/24/2015 2:05:32 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The launch of Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential bid Monday has prompted an outpouring of excitement and delight — from Democrats.
To liberal activists, the firebrand Texan is much too far to the right for the nation at large and too extreme to even win the Republican nomination.
But they want nothing more than for him to run strongly throughout the primary season. The more momentum he develops, they argue, the more likely he is to push the eventual GOP nominee further to the right than that person will want to go.
“I can’t believe Christmas has come so early,” Chris Kofinis, a former aide to ex-Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) during his 2008 presidential campaign, said gleefully. “Ted Cruz makes a good bogeyman,” said Jamal Simmons, another Democratic strategist who has worked for several presidential campaigns.
It is not just political professionals who are rejoicing over Cruz’s announcement.
“#TedCruz is in!” liberal comedian and TV host Bill Maher tweeted Monday. “Yeah, man — what’s not to love about a guy who acts like Joe McCarthy and sweats like Richard Nixon?”
Cruz’s Republican supporters, naturally, believe he will prove the naysayers wrong. They argue his outsider appeal and fervent conservatism is just what the nation needs.
They also note that the GOP has racked up an unenviable track record in the past two election cycles, choosing presidential nominees — Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in 2008 and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012 — who were deemed electable by Washington insiders yet defeated handily by President Obama.
The Cruz loyalists are also likely to hark back even further, noting how Ronald Reagan was once thought to be too conservative for the nation’s tastes.
A fellow Republican, former President Ford, called Reagan “unelectable” in the spring of 1979, less than two years before Reagan would thump incumbent Democratic former President Carter and usher in a new era of conservative ascendancy.
The Reagan parallel gives even some Democrats food for thought.
“I recall the legend of folks in the Carter White House saying they wanted to run against Ronald Reagan. … So I approach the GOP field with a degree of humility,” Paul Begala, a strategist for President Clinton’s 1992 victorious presidential campaign, said in an email to The Hill.
Begala added that Cruz has “Barack Obama’s education and Sarah Palin’s politics. He could unify the three anti-establishment [GOP] factions: for the Tea Party, he engineered the government shutdown; for the Christian evangelicals, he opposes a woman’s right to choose even in the case of rape and incest; and for the libertarians, he says Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. To paraphrase George W. Bush, I would not misunderestimate Sen. Cruz.”
The longtime pundit’s phrasing, of course, slyly highlighted the reasons many Democrats believe Cruz simply can’t get elected in a nationwide race.
They contend that the traditional conservative rhetoric of his announcement speech — and his choice of Liberty University, the evangelical college founded by the late Jerry Falwell, as the venue — point to Cruz as a kind of anachronism who might have had a better chance if he were running in 1976 rather than in 2016.
“The Republican Party is going … to have to decide whether it wants to win, given the reality of where the American voter is, or do they want to keep tilting at windmills?” Kofinis said. “Cruz is a windmill-tilter. He wants the country to be something it’s not and hasn’t been for 20 or 30 years. It’s more diverse and not as conservative on social issues.”
Democrats are already seeking to portray Cruz as emblematic of the GOP at large.
No sooner had Cruz launched his campaign Monday than the Democratic National Committee blasted out an email to reporters in which DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) labeled the Texan as “the de facto leader of the Republican Party in recent years.”
That phrase also alluded to Cruz’s role in the 2013 government shutdown that was aimed at defunding ObamaCare and was widely seen as a failure for Republicans. Earlier that year, McCain famously referred to Cruz as among his party’s “wacko birds.” On Monday, centrist Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) derided him as a “carnival barker.”
The across-the-board skepticism about Cruz’s chances as a potential national candidate is founded in recent opinion polls.
In three polls conducted since the beginning of February, Cruz fared among the worst possible options for Republicans. The surveys asked about hypothetical presidential contests between various GOP nominees and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton
In the most recent poll, conducted earlier this month by Marist, Cruz’s deficit against Clinton was a full 14 percentage points (39 percent to 53 percent). However, Clinton only led by 7 percentage points against Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and only 4 versus Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
Cruz loyalists will point out that such polls are meaningless at this stage, citing the precedent of his underdog victory in the 2012 Texas GOP Senate primary that launched him to conservative stardom. Allies argue he is smarter and far more appealing than his detractors suggest.
But Democratic glee over his candidacy won’t erode anytime soon.
“Go, Ted, go!” exulted strategist Chris Lehane, who worked in Bill Clinton’s White House.
Outpouring, yes. Thrill and excitement of the bring-it-on bravado? Not even hardly. They need to go change their underwear if you ask me.
I wish someone could give me an example of an extreme right wing political viewpoint.
Global warming skeptic? Most people are.
Supports second amendment? Most people do.
Against amnesty? Most people are.
Against Obamacare? Most people are.
Abolish IRS? Oh please, I can hear the hurrahs before they are even shouted.
So, lefties, please tell me how Ted Cruz is an extremist and out of sync with the american people.
Look at the energy they are putting into this news of Ted Cruz. At core, they are scared to death that the electorate will abandon them as the frauds they are.
I am still marveling at the candor and transparency of Ted Cruz’ speech today at Liberty University. He opened his whole life for everyone to see.
Then I think of the hidden parts of Obama’s life, how he has sealed vast swaths of his entire development.
Ted Cruz has let everyone directly know just who he is and where he comes from.
In contrast, no one knows directly who Obama is or where he came from. Indirectly we know him by his fruits and actions.
To them, he is extreme because he is extremely counter to their view.
He wants the country to be something it’s not and hasn’t been for 20 or 30 years. It’s more diverse and not as conservative on social issues.”
Don’t you just love these words? Golly, it isn’t like obama didn’t want to be something it never was - oh, you know, like communistic. They think the country isn’t as conservative on social issues - these people are living in a bubble and don’t speak for the majority of us in flyover country. They are so out of touch - and hypocritical.
Yeah I would Love for Cruz to win the nomination. Even if he loses, I would rather have someone lose the national election having Stood up for the Constitution. Lets have the national vote between Constitutionalism and Radical Communism.
“...like civilians in an air raid”
The Fox pundits are doing that. Gutfeld is the worst. completely unreasonable, taking his cues from the bushbot perino.
I cancelled my dvr of the series immediately.
On Red Eye, they have a pitifully lame parody montage from where there is no where to go. The guests won’t opine until one comes out and says Cruz is ok, then the others say, yeah, that’s right, he -he’s ok.
It is going to be a long year and a half for them, especially if they’ve chosen sides.
Gallows humor.
If he pulls it off and then retires from being POTUS and returns to being a normal citizen, he will not be able to walk into a bar or restaurant without someone wanting to buy him a beer, and I am not sure he even drinks!
I would give the fox news people some rope here. It’s way too early in the game. I ask myself why they would be coming out this early distancing themselves from this candidate.
The best case answer is because they don’t want to apply a ‘fox news’ brand to him. This would mean that cruz has learned how to manipulate the predictable leftists opposition.
The worst case answer is that fox news does not favor a highly educated, articulate, minority constitutionalist candidate.
Why would I believe that?
He would deserve a place on Mt Rushmore.
Some republicans cheered zer0’s run. I’m so glad they are cheering Cruz. Perhaps they can, in those states that allow anyone to vote in the republican primaries, push Cruz over the top?
Looking forward to that.
“I would give the fox news people some rope here.”
WEll, I would watch the segment before criticizing those who have a big problem with it.
Rope? Gutfeld AND Bolling both declared themselves against Cruz, and neither with any reasonable argument.
There is not enough rope anyone could five them Imus is in the same boat, and he’s been quiet over the past week on Cruz.
No way any of them from what they’ve said, can come out in the next year and a half FOR Cruz after what they’ve said, without declaring that they’ve had a turn around.
So get off my case and watch the segment
could five them
could give them
Utter baloney.
OK. You got what you wanted, Cruz is running. Now, give us Shrillary! and we’ll call it even!!
...and Hillary Clinton is center....such nonsense from the Press Corp....such lies and vile...nothing they say anymore is trusted. ...they dropped the ball long ago on public trust....
“they’re putting up a brave front and trying to spin it as good news for them”
Exactly.
A John Edwards staffer...? LOL!
That tells you something right there about this article!
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