Ted Cruz Ping! If you want on/off this ping list, please let me know.
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CRUZ or LOSE!
Posted on 05/20/2015 9:58:05 AM PDT by VinL
Being outside of Washington, D.C., is usually an advantage for a presidential aspirant confronting a crowded field of potential Republican candidates. Away from the taint and deal-making in Washington, governors and former governors generally can run against Washington, like George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan did.
But this year is different. Serving in the Senate at this point in the race gives an undeniable advantage to Ted Cruz (Texas), Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Rand Paul (Ky.), because the Senate is where the action will be. Congress will dominate the spotlight as it wrestles with NSA reform, the Iran nuclear deal and — most likely — a forced overhaul or even repeal of ObamaCare in the wake of the coming Supreme Court decision in King v. Burwell.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, running from outside the Senate, has no ongoing relevance to the great battles that are shaping up this spring and summer. His work in Wisconsin is largely done. His magnificent reforms are safely enacted and are working. The teachers union in the state is struggling with declining membership and lack of political clout. But there is no Act 2 for Walker to command national attention.
When the Senate focuses on NSA reform, Rubio, Cruz and Paul will be right there at the center of the action. Paul, with his creative fusion of social and economic libertarianism, will enjoy a lot of coverage as he takes the lead in battling for individual liberties. The defense and intelligence communities look their worst when we focus on the issues created by Edward Snowden’s document dump, and Paul will be there to fight the dragon.
Similarly, when ObamaCare comes back to Congress after a Supreme Court ruling that could knock out the subsidies for enrollees in the federal exchanges, Cruz will likely shine. It could be his hour. Once the court throws out the subsidies, Republican governors whose states didn’t set up exchanges could be under intense pressure to do so. Between 7 million and 8 million people will be forced to cancel their ObamaCare policies because they won’t be able to afford them without the subsidy. (These, ironically, are usually the same people who had their previous health plans canceled because their coverage wasn’t as broad as President Obama wished).
Cruz, Rubio and Paul can win points by pushing for a federal solution that postpones the subsidy cancellation and gives states leeway to decide whether to adopt an ObamaCare exchange within their borders. It was Cruz’s filibuster over ObamaCare that put the Texas senator on the map in the first place. Republicans will demand a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act in the wake of a court decision.
Cruz’s plan is to let each state choose whether it wants to require that people have insurance or not and to specify the minimum acceptable coverage for healthcare plans within their borders. He would make the ObamaCare taxes null and void in states that do not choose to enter into ObamaCare system in the wake of the high court decision.
Ultimately, Cruz will probably win his fight — and will look very good pushing Republican governors and senators to move his way on the issue.
Meanwhile, what can Walker do? Here’s where the GOP will feel the lack of the early debates that animated the 2012 Republican primaries. Without spring and summer debates, candidates have to actually do something on the national scale, and that opportunity is denied to Walker by his role as a governor.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who might also be consigned to the sidelines during these legislative battles, has a fight of his own to wage: his objection to the curbs on elderly entitlements embodied in the Republican budget proposals. This positioning gives him access to senior voters in droves, as well as continuing relevance to national coverage.
But Walker can only govern one state, and his ability to get national coverage for his role in solving state problems is limited.
Walker gets to posture on the same issues without recourse. It’s a lot easier to talk and not vote than to do both, because somewhere along the lines your vote will always give the opposition ammo, because you WILL compromise.
If that’s true, doesn’t it follow that Jeb Bush is also at a disadvantage as well? Not that JB doesn’t already have some significant chinks in the armor already.
Whenever I see something from Dick Morris, I do the complete opposite. Morris is scared of Walker and is writing this on behalf of a Senator (probably Rubio).
FYI, Governors by far, make better Presidents that Senators. Governors govern; Senators are typically micromanaging egotists. The jerk in the white house is Exhibit A.
Washington “insiders”, through their insider dealings, have put US in this mess of a country that we are currently dealing with.
Get rid of all of the “insider” wheelers and dealers, and dead weight incumbents, and put some actual responsible, patriotic Americans in charge for a change, who actually want Americans to succeed, and not just pander to corporate lobbyists for short term gain.
I know, it’s asking a lot, but I want our elected representatives to put the health and well being of the US first.
Walker will make headlines, because his enemies cannot help but try to paint him as an ogre, and the media will publicize those attacks, hoping to make something stick. Cruz is my #1, and I wish I believed Morris’ prediction would come true regarding Obamacare. Reagan had no early debates before 1980, and he hadn’t even been governor for SIX years! Walker’s hit critical mass, guaranteeing attention, the right enemies, and enough of a war chest to see the fight through.
Cruz is my #1, but I will support either Cruz or Walker to stop Jeb or Rand Paul (Mr. Social Issues Truce).
Jeb Bush has an insurmountable disadvantage because of his family name. It may seem cute for the Bush Family to float “do you miss me yet” — but the answer is “no!”—
Conservatives are permanently impressed that Scott Walker took on the teachers union and won. That will never be forgotten.
OTOH, Rubio has demonstrated that the wrong position on legislation (immigration and Iran treaty) can do significant damage to a candidate’s standing.
Ted Cruz isn’t 100% clean on either of these issues either (but I don’t think it’ll hurt him that much). But Tom Cotton proved to be the leader on the Iran deal, not Ted Cruz.
In summary, Dick Morris places too much emphasis on Federal experience.
Gov. Walker has many admirable accomplishments.
This year is not different. This year is almost never “different”, no matter how often analysts claim it is. Insiders from DC can win and often do, but outsiders, especially governors, have an advantage if they are also good communicators. What matters most is the candidate, not where that candidate comes from. I strongly prefer governors in the abstract, but Cruz is my top choice because of who he is and how he communicates, not because of his current office.
Wrong.
If McConnell's Senate keeps giving Obama everything he wants, McConnell will undermine the Senate candidates' messaging.
Furthermore, an outsider like Walker is free to challenge McConnell's Senate leadership, helping to shape, and to whatever degree Walker can influence, control the discussion.
-PJ
Being too successful ang having a track record of accomplishment is only a “problem” for those like Morris who have a lot of columns to fill with something before people start paying attention to the 2016 election.
I don’t think I’d “flame” so much as look back and look to the present day state of affairs with regard to Governors as a viable President as opposed to a Senator, former or otherwise.
The prevailing pundit wisdom in past elections has always gone on the side of governors, mini-presidents if you will, of a sovereign entity like a state.
However, most recently a nobody really, a well-disguised and much-protected dark horse Senator was successfully able to defeat another Senator for his party’s nomination and later went on to defeat a former governor.
Now we have a Democrat former Senator (a verified LOSER candidate within her own party’s nomination process, no less) with no record, running against current/former governors, current Senators and the like.
What we have now is a country besieged by ineffective Senators, Representatives and worse, a President that have only themselves and an ideology that doesn’t include tax paying American citizens except to the extent those suckers can underwrite the pandering for votes and accompanying loss of freedom.
In my opinion, there isn’t a pundit or a pollster out there today that can predict with any semblance of validity what is going to happen. They didn’t predict (or flatly refused to admit) the utter disgust voters showered on American Government in November 2014, and they certainly cannot now. They are too invested in their cloistered circles and their pampered and financially lucrative positions to do otherwise. They are, in fact, political dinosaurs unworthy of our consideration. I’d put Dick Morris in the Brontosaurus genus [I know that probably is incorrect but it sounds nice to me - he certainly isn’t in the T-REX category - Toe Sucker comes to mind :0)].
For the multitude of problems our nation now faces, we need less Washingtonian "conventional wisdom" and more Midwestern common sense!!! Go Scott Walker!
You make an impressive and important point saying, “Walker gets to posture on the same issues without recourse.”
Nice.
Walker is running a very successful show in Wisconsin and what he will have to say on these national and international issues in the debates occurring in the senate will be taken seriously, whether he is in the chamber or not. Outside of DC is not a bad place to be.
Walker has been portrayed as the earliest best threat to Jeb Bush and he has sustained that impression the longest, though media prefers to play up Rubio’s chances over Hillary. (No wonder it’s possible that Dick Morris may prefer Rubio.) Eyes are still on Walker at the moment.
On the other hand, when the GOP caves and agrees to keep on funding Obamacare on a “temporary” basis, Walker will have had no part in the capitulation.
Ted Cruz Ping! If I were a Wisconsin native I think I would not want to see him leave the state for the vacuum that would be created if he did where the lefties would then take over again.
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