Posted on 03/27/2015 8:35:25 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
A broad cross-section of Republican officeholders, major donors and conservative pundits are agreed on one thing: Ted Cruz has no chance to be elected president. The junior senator from Texas marked the fifth anniversary of the signing of ObamaCare by announcing his candidacy for the presidency today at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia and no one in the chattering classes thinks he has a prayer of being sworn into office as commander-in-chief in January 2017. Just about everyone thinks his positions on the issues are too extreme and that his advocacy of the 2013 government shutdown and the complete antipathy of the rest of the Senate and the party establishment make it impossible for him to win. Even those who sympathize with his politics tend to agree that he just isn’t likeable enough to gain his party’s nomination, let alone win a general election against a Democrat. But his detractors need to understand something. As his announcement this morning showed us, he is a fabulous speaker and a dynamic personality with a unique appeal. The scenario that Cruz is hoping will make him the GOP nominee may be a very shot indeed but it is not crazy.
When stacked against those of his Republican competitors, it’s easy to see why few think the Texan has much of a chance. The party elites that are, as Nate Cohn rightly points out in his New York Times Upshot column about Cruz today, still important to winning nominations, are united in their opposition to him. He will raise money but nowhere near as much as Jeb Bush or even other conservatives like Scott Walker. Nor can he claim to be the sole candidate seeking to appeal to Tea Party conservatives, who tend to adore him, or even the evangelicals that he is courting by announcing at the school founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
Cruz is also widely hated by most of his Senate colleagues and tends not to come across as a guy most people would want to have a beer with. Last week’s viral story about Cruz supposedly scaring a little girl at a New Hampshire event was inaccurate and unfair. If anything, a look at the tape of the encounter showed him to be sensitive and actually quite caring about the child’s reaction to his rhetoric about President Obama setting the world on fire. But it resonated because that is how most adults, Republicans and Democrats alike, tend to think about him. Indeed, I think the likeability factor is a much more important obstacle for Cruz to overcome than his ideology. As a recent Wall Street Journal poll illustrated, the number of those who can envision supporting him barely outnumber those who say they can never back him.
But even if admit up front that Cruz’s path to victory is as steep as can be imagined, the party establishment and others that loathe him would still be foolish to underestimate him or his power to play a serious role in the GOP race.
If there is anything that we have learned about him in the two and a half years since he began throwing bombs in the Senate and upsetting his colleagues, it is that Cruz is utterly undaunted by criticism or long odds. In the view of more moderate conservatives, that makes him unwilling to listen to common sense. But it also gives him a certain power that more realistic figures lack. You may think Ted Cruz is over-the-top but he does not care.
He brings to the race certain strengths that his rivals lack. As I noted backed in December, “If you’re going to make comparisons to 2012 candidates, imagine someone with the folksiness of Rick Perry (albeit in a Cuban Texan version), the passion of Santorum on populist and social conservative issues, the debating skill of Newt Gingrich, and the wonkish grasp of details of a Mitt Romney and you have a fair idea of what Cruz brings to the table.”
Though debates will not be as ubiquitous this time as they were in 2012, they will still be crucial. Cruz’s ability to eviscerate opponents is something his opponents should fear. Nor is he, despite his embrace of suicidal tactics like the shutdown, someone who will embrace crackpot positions on vaccines or show ignorance about foreign policy.
Jeb Bush is the darling of the establishment. Scott Walker is in a sweet spot that can embrace the party establishment, Tea Partiers and evangelicals. Rand Paul has the libertarians. Marco Rubio is the strongest voice on foreign policy and can also appeal to both wings of the party. Mike Huckabee will compete with him for the populist vote and Rick Santorum for religious conservatives. Others will have their own strengths. But the sheer size and strength of this field (especially compared to 2012) makes is more likely that someone we now consider an outlier may break through. Cruz isn’t likely to be the one who will do so but neither is it insane to think that he might. Others also face long odds, but few have his potent political skills.
The problem for those writing off Cruz’s candidacy as absurd is that the very same factors that make him so unappealing to his Senate colleagues and the party establishment can endear him to grassroots voters. He may be inexperienced in office with only two years in the Senate on his resume but he is also untainted by the compromises that responsible officials must make because he has never compromised on any issue. If Cruz can tap into the Tea Party base and become its standard bearer, he will be a formidable candidate in the early primary states. After that, it will be anyone’s game. Right now, that’s about as realistic a scenario as any of his competitors can claim.
None of that changes the fact that it is hard to see how he could win a general election and Republicans who want to win are not only never going to consider him but will move heaven and earth to stop him if he does get close to the nomination. But they should not assume that this is a possibility they’ll never have to contemplate. The Ted Cruz scenario for Republicans is a very long shot but those chuckling about his early announcement are making assumptions that the party base may not back up.
Vote. Contribute. Volunteer.
Perhaps “piling on” should be a keyword.
Feel free.
Simply by declaring, Cruz may force the field to the right but since all politicians are phonies at their core, he may only force them to pay lip service to conservative principles.
To Cruz:
We know who you are by the people who attack you.
Go Ted!
Ditto...
All? Ronald Reagan? Sarah Palin? Ted Cruz? Calvin Coolidge? George Washington? James Madison? Thomas Jefferson? James Monroe? Ike?
The people who can stop Cruz from being elected — are the very Republicans in leadership who have sold themselves out to the Democrats as stooges in a phony opposition party.
And get there, NOW, and start calmly telling everyone you know/meet the great things about Cruz! Learn old fashioned KGB brainwashing and Alinsky tactics and use them !
I can not remember a candidate that the instant after they announced everyone asked “can they win”.
Can McCain win
Can Romney win
Can Jerry Brown win
Can John Edwards win
Can Mike Huckabee win
Can Ron Paulson win
Can Ron Paul win
Can Ralph Nader win
Can Al Gore win
Can Ben Carson win
Can Joe Biden win
Can Jesse Jackson win
Can George H.W. Bush win
There are other reasons to run that to win. You can position yourself as a VP pick. Move the debate in the right direction. Improve your name recognition for the next election....
Ping.
The election is not today. Time has been known to usher in the unbelievable when the unexpected paves a new road.
There absolutely is, and the GOP-wing of the Democrat party told us so by trotting Jethro out to start the POTUS nomination process a year early because they are so terrified of him.
Nope, the GOP-Eers can’t “stop” Cruz.
What are they going to do, call him names? They do that anyway.
Not fund him, when he IS the nominee?
That would end the GOP forever !
Orly?
Well let’s see. Iran gets nukes. Nukes go off in NYC, LA, San Fran, and a some other big blue cities. And although they would never tell you, if there was still an election, a bunch of liberals would be voting for the conservative they think the most crazy.
Watch the Bushies come out accusing Senator Cruz of engaging in the soft bigotry of extremist conservative views.
Jeb has collected over $100 million from who? We need to expose the sources funding the Jeb campaign.
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