Posted on 09/04/2015 12:47:34 PM PDT by Isara
FORT WORTH — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz brought an enthusiastic crowd of about 2,000 supporters to their feet Thursday at the Stockyards with his recitation of how he would set about undoing President Barack Obama’s legacy on a very busy first day in the White House.
The crowd never sat down.
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| Republican presidential candidate, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, poses for photos after his speech at the Fort Worth Stockyards on Thursday |
“That’s day one,” Cruz said. “There are 365 days in a year, four years in a presidential term, four years in a second term. At the end of the eighth year, there are going to be a lot of newspaper reporters and journalists and editors to check themselves into therapy.”
Presenting his candidacy as a crusade to save America as “the last, best hope for mankind,” Cruz closed his remarks with the declaration, “We are not prepared to go quietly into the night.”
The crowd roared its approval, and then many surged toward the candidate, surrounding him as, one by one, family unit by family unit, he shook hands, signed books and had photos taken.
For Cruz, it was an exhilarating launch to a day of campaigning for president in his home state that would take him to an afternoon Cruz Country Rally in Tyler and a Kingwood Tea Party Freedom Rally in the evening.
Cruz is the man to beat in the March 1 Texas primary, which has the second-largest cache of delegates, behind only California.
The Texas primary is relatively early in the process, coming on the heels of South Carolina’s primary — the fourth contest after the Iowa and Nevada caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
“I think Ted Cruz is going to win Texas,” said state Rep. Matt Rinaldi, R-Irving, a tea party legislator who opened Thursday’s rally and who fashions himself a lawmaker in Cruz’s uncompromisingly conservative mold. “I think he is going to win in Iowa.”
The swift dominance of Donald Trump in the GOP race has, for the time being, overshadowed Cruz’s capacity to be the most provocative tribune of discontent.
But Cruz has sought from the start to make Trump an ally, not an adversary, and Cruz and Trump — at Cruz’s invitation — will lead what promises to be a huge rally against the Iran nuclear agreement outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, the day before the Senate votes on it.
Mike Jones, a Glen Rose veterinarian who ran unsuccessfully for state representative and who has started a grass-roots committee supporting Cruz’s presidential campaign in Texas, said the New York mogul had successfully unleashed a national discussion on such issues as immigration. In the long run, it is a space that Cruz will more skillfully fill after voters learn that Trump is neither truly a Republican nor a conservative, he said.
“This is the candidate to get enthusiastic about,” an invigorated Jones said after Cruz spoke.
For Cruz, the Texas primary is a bit of an ace in the hole.
It’s a huge and expensive state to campaign in, and Cruz has an on-the-ground political army he built for his Senate campaign and has nurtured ever since.
As of this week, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in an email, “We do not have a Texas operation.”
“I think when Donald Trump comes to Texas, he is going to find that Ted Cruz has a pretty good beachhead here,” said Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas. “A significant share of the people that are attracted to Donald Trump for his iconoclastic approach to campaigning and politics are already predisposed toward Ted Cruz.”
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who was campaigning in Texas this week and who in February was running neck-and-neck with Cruz in the UT/Texas Tribune poll, has seen his fortunes wilt since Trump’s entry.
“Scott Walker is rapidly becoming, much to his chagrin, a cautionary tale of peaking too soon and getting caught up in the crosscurrents of Trump’s rise and the media storm around Trump,” Henson said.
But, Henson said, “I do not think that Donald Trump is hurting Ted Cruz in Texas. Trump is talking about the failure of government, of the establishment, this notion of American decline. This is all consistent with what Cruz wants this primary to be about. If those are the terms of the political discussion, Ted Cruz is fine with that.”
“People are looking for a fighter; they want someone storming the temple, knocking over the money-changers’ tables,” said Brendan Steinhauser, an Austin-based Republican political consultant who played a formative role in creating the national tea party movement.
In the end, Steinhauser thinks most conservative voters will pass on Trump: “I think they are going to settle on a legitimate contender like a Cruz, a Rubio, a Walker.”
And, Cruz said at Thursday’s rally, “I’ll tell you the difference between me and the other fine candidates on that debate stage. With me, when I tell you I’m going to do something, I’m going to do exactly what I say.”
OK, home court advantage. I’d be even more impress if he can get the same reception from the swing states of Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Colorado.
LOL, he looks a lot like a young LBJ there.
As POTUS he’d be the anti-LBJ. Cruz could undo some of the damage the nation has suffered from Johnson’s agenda, which was a lot of damage for the five years he ran the shop. Poisoned the political groundwater, he did.
I am keeping an open mind about Trump. I probably wouldn’t like everything he has done or will do. But if he builds the wall, takes care of the vets, and most importantly for me ends the Planned Parenthood travesty....I will be ok (I think). I also like his income tax proposals. Our financial management in the US is insanity.
So you’re not in CA anymore? I grew up there and miss it - want to go to Carlsbad. Sick of the winters in the Pacific Northwest.
In terms of damage done, LBJ ranks with Carter and Ozero.
Viet Nam, the "War" on Poverty, consolidation of the government's operating budget with Social Security, etc.
It's not a pretty picture...
Day 1: Rescind all executive orders issued during these eight terrible years. Give government agencies notice that they have 30 days to explain why any individual regulations should be retained before all other administrative regulations from these eight years of tyranny are repealed.
Day 2: Start impeachment proceedings against all officials nominated by Obama. Direct Congress to pass bills repealing Obamacare, all other new federal laws that were signed by the usurper, and all federal restrictions on the God-given individual right of the people to keep and bear arms. Pardon all individuals persecuted for the free exercise of their religious beliefs. Refund all past Obamacare penalties and grant lifetime waivers on Obamacare fines to all American individuals and employers, while the Obamacare repeal is in progress. Revoke all immigration waivers and begin deporting illegals.
Day 3: Take a deep breath and then get to work on restoring the economy and restoring freedom.
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