Ted Cruz's "Mushy Middle" Mistake (BARF ALERT!)

You prove his point. None of those Senators is as liberal as Brooke or Javits or Case was.

Jeffrey Lord doesn't get it either: "A GOP Senate that features Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Lisa Murkowski, and Jeff Flake may not be the party of Brooke and Percy but it is nowhere close to the party of Reagan."

Republican Senators in the Reagan years included Brooke, Matthias, Weicker, Specter, Rudman -- all probably more liberal than any Republicans in the Senate now.

The "party of Reagan" included a lot of people who would never be considered Republicans today. Reagan managed to win and accomplish things all the same.

There are things one could criticize in Will's article. IMHO, the basic point which he should have emphasized would be that a candidate who alienates potential supporters early on (Goldwater's sawing off the Eastern seaboard and extremism in the defense of liberty", Cruz's "mushy middle") isn't likely to win. Ronald Reagan didn't do that (which may be one good reason why he did win).

Meanwhile, they don't remember 1980 when they oopsed and nominated a strong Conservative and won bigger than ever before or since except for 1984 (which they also forget) when they nominated a strong conservative and won in the biggest landslide ever. Selective memory syndrome anyone?

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From Will's article:

The candidacy had, however, planted “seeds of hope, which will flower on a great November day in the future.” Sixteen Novembers later, they did.

Do the math.

The author fails to understand that there is no longer a “middle”. The candidate that motivates and turns out their base will be the one who wins elections.

Possibly there's less of a classic swing vote.

But the party base a candidate needs to win and the ideological base candidates play to aren't the same.

There are voters parties count on who don't respond to more ideological arguments.

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