“Cruz has stood up in the Senate all night long virtually alone against the Republican establishment and the media to defend us against tyranny. What has Donald Trump actually done except fund ethical “corruption” and profit from it?”
I like Cruz. He’s polling so low, he’s in danger of becoming irrelevant. So now what? I do have an issue with Cruz for voting for “pre-ratification” of the Iran deal - he DIDN’T stand up for tyranny there - and contributed to this extra-Constitutional nonsense, that endangers America.
So we’ve got conflicts. So what?
“I fail to see how Donald Trump reflects conservative values by virtue of his biography or by virtue of his public statements. “
I’m not holding him out as a paragon of conservatism. Then again, there aren’t any in GOP leadership and no GOP leadership on conservative issues. Trump fights back, and he supports the single issue (Illegal immigration) that I think is most important. I don’t care if Trumps position on illegal immigration is “conservative” or not. I’m pretty sure all the supposed “conservatives” are “nuanced” on illegal immigration. They are wrong, Trump is right, and if I get an opportunity to vote for him in the primaries, I will, and if he keeps his stated position, I’ll vote for him for President - WHATEVER party he runs under.
Do you understand? “conservatives” are all “nuanced” on a whole host of issues. I don’t care. I’m voting for the SINGLE issue I think is important. That he approximates conservatism on other issues is fine, but I don’t care. There is no issue that I am aware that his position makes him an abhorrent candidate to vote for.
“Because it is too early for the polls to be dispositive”
BS. You find them dispositive enough to reject him. Why reject him? If he’s the candidate, I’ll vote for him. He’s in the lead, so it’s not a stretch to assume he COULD be the GOP candidate. At this point, Cruz is so far behind, it isn’t a stretch to question whether he’ll be a factor. If Cruz is the nominee, I’ll vote for him - but I’d like it better if his position on illegal immigration were closer to Trumps.
“I have emphasized the words, “right now” because it is not “right now” that we are picking a viable candidate.”
Yeah, Lindsay Graham isn’t viable right now either. Neither is Jim Gilmore, or George Pataki. Those guys are his polling peers right now.
Trump is in the lead. It’s not everything at this point, but it’s not nothing either, as you seem to suggest.
After all this back and forth let me shock you, I agree with you there is only one issue: immigration.
If immigration continues, even without amnesty, the Republicans will not win another election in my lifetime and probably for a whole generation after that. If that is because the Democrats, facilitated often by the courts, are jiggering the election laws and furnishing illegal immigrants with drivers licenses with which they will gain entry to the polls. That is going on without amnesty, with amnesty there simply is no hope.
No hope for the country, not just for a conservative country but no hope for a nation that resembles a nation in which I grew up or a nation which is not simply absorbed into a polyglot, amorphous global village very likely severely regimented and much poorer. We might become Muslim, we might become the victims of the Chinese, we might find ourselves regimented by the environmentalists, or a new force might emerge but one thing is clear, an America faithful to the Bill of Rights and to its constitution will simply not survive. Paragraph Without a check on immigration there can be no effective national defense, no hope of bringing the budget under control to avoid a calamity, no national consensus to oppose radical Islam or aggressive Chinese expansionism. There will be no sense of nation.
I give Trump the edge on immigration over Ted Cruz, but just a small edge because Trump can't be trusted, Trump is not motivated by conservative values, he will not seek to curb immigration to protect conservatism or even to protect the Constitution, he will do it because he thinks it makes economic sense. If we have to choose between the two, I believe Cruz will fight to protect the Constitution. But Cruz is not right on the visas and he has not been strong enough on deportation.
I do not fault people for choosing Trump for his stance on immigration, I do fault conservatives who are willfully blind to the man's failings.
