Posted on 04/19/2015 8:49:13 PM PDT by VinL
It's no secret that Ted Cruz is running hard to the right as he pursues the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. The strategy is pretty clear: He's pushing to out-conservative the rest of the field. Cruz wants, as he says repeatedly on the campaign trail, to lead a "grassroots army" of "courageous conservatives."
But how would the tea party Texan win over the independents and Democrats needed in the general election?
That's the question Cruz got at a New Hampshire gun range Sunday afternoon from a Cruz fan who had driven up from Massachusetts to express his concerns, in person, about Cruz's crossover appeal.
The senator had a two-part answer, both elements of which are topics of debate.
The first is that "millions of conservatives who showed up in '04…stayed home in '08, and stayed home in even bigger numbers in 2012." (GOP strategist Karl Rove, notably, has disagreed with that analysis in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.) The second is that the bigger the ideological gap between Democrat and Republican – and the bolder the GOP candidate – the more likely the traditional Democratic-leaning voters will actually switch sides in 2016.
We've decided to print Cruz's answer in full because, in it, he describes in detail the unusual intellectual underpinning of his campaign and his strategy:
"Let's talk about how you win an election generally," Cruz began. "You know, what is maddening about politics is there is this group of consultants who keep running national campaigns. They keep losing. And then they keep coming back to Republicans saying support us while we go make the exact same mistakes all over again…
"If you compare 2004, the last race Republicans won, to '08 and '12, by far the biggest difference are the millions of conservatives who showed up in '04, who stayed home in '08, and stayed home in even bigger numbers in 2012. So how do you win? How do you win? I think the key question is how do we bring back those millions of conservatives.
"Now, here's what I called the Washington fallacy, which is what the consultants believe. They look at voters on a spectrum from right to left. And their view is if your opponent is here [he holds one hand up], you want to be infinitesimally to the right [he squeezes his other hand next to the first]. So you capture every marginal voter up until where they are. Now, I understand that theory in the abstract. It's not a crazy theory in the abstract. The problem is we keep trying. And we keep losing. Because every time you do that, millions and millions of people over here [moves his Republican hand to the right] say to heck with this thing.
"The way you win is you draw a line in the sand. You make a clear meaningful distinction why this election matters to you and two things happen. Number one, you turn out millions of [conservative] voters. But number two, and this goes right to your question, it's also how you earn crossover votes.
"You think about it, in the last 50 years, there's one Republican who has a group of Democrats named after him. Reagan Democrats. If the Washington theory were right, you'd have Gerald Ford Democrats [crowd laughs], or Bob Dole Democrats [crowd laughs louder]. They don't exist.
"You think about 1980 – and understand why. In 1980, Ronald Reagan didn't say I'm exactly like Jimmy Carter, except imperceptibly to the right. Reagan drew line in the sand. He said there is a fundamental difference between me and Jimmy Carter...
Well, we know you can’t win the right by running center/left. Just ask McPain and WrongMe.
Screw the Obama Republicans,
The man with a plan is seeking:
Cruz Democrats!
Ah ha! There's a big part of the problem right there!
What do you mean by “running right”? They guy has always BEEN right.
“”millions of conservatives who showed up in ‘04…stayed home in ‘08, and stayed home in even bigger numbers in 2012.” (GOP strategist Karl Rove, notably, has disagreed with that analysis in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.) The second is that the bigger the ideological gap between Democrat and Republican – and the bolder the GOP candidate – the more likely the traditional Democratic-leaning voters will actually switch sides in 2016.”
Well for what it is worth, I fully agree with him!
Cruz is not seeking the votes of baby-killers. Once in office, he won’t have to worry about making them mad.
Democrats that go to the polling booth with an Obama T-shirt on.. (in certain districts)... for safety..
BUT................
Vote for Cruz..
Cruz gets it. Thank you for posting this.
You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
IMO the Reagan democrats of 1980 and 1984 are either dead, or they became Republicans.
Relying on “voters” from 2004, that didn’t vote in 2008 and didn’t vote in 2012, is placing a considerable bet, on unreliable “voters.”
Poll after poll indicate that Independents lean left on social issues, and lean right on economic and national security issues.
Cruz is right.
A Rand Paul supporter just told me on another thread that Ronald Reagan was palitible to the left, geez, Reagan was right of center.
A Rand Paul supporter was just telling me on another thread that Rand Paul would be more palitible to the general public than Ted Cruz and that Ronald Regan was palitible to the left.
I guess I’ll have to forgive his being a Senator. And that REALLY stinks.
But, Cruz 2016!
Your assumption relies on that “spectrum” theory which Cruz rejects. People vote emotionally. That means they can be pulled to to left or to the right depending of what grabs them at the moment. Relatively few people are ideologues. Much depends on the situation at the time of an election. Dole, McCain, and Romney had this in common: they refused to invest themselves emotionally and take the fight to their opponent. Obama presents himself as a reasonable person and gets away with it. We all saw that first debate where Romney unmasked Obama.
Hard to compare. I have seen them side by side, and I noticed that Cruz likes to put in the needle and this make Paul a bit uncomfortable.
I agree with you. Rove is not of the likes of Cruz; instead Rove is of the likes of the Bushes with their Saudi friends who I wouldn’t/couldn’t trust to be a true friend/compatriot of the US. In WWII whose/which side were the Saudis on.
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