Posted on 12/13/2015 8:51:27 AM PST by Isara
Ted Cruz's strategy for winning the Republican presidential nomination is becoming clearer by the day.
The Texas senator continues to march toward primary season methodically cobbling together the segments of GOP voters, winning endorsements and rising at the polls particularly in Iowa.
But his increased appetite for taking on Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), as well as his repeated resistance to taking the gloves off with Donald Trump, sheds light on the senator's fourth-quarter strategy.
"This week was probably his best week," Ford O'Connell, an unaffiliated Republican strategist, said, noting the endorsement of major Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats, who has backed the last two Iowa caucus winners.
And for the first time since June, Cruz overtook front-runner Donald Trump in an Iowa poll, adding to his momentum in the early voting state.
"It's been impressive to watch Sen. Cruz start to consolidate the anti-establishment conservative segment of the Iowa caucus electorate," former state GOP chairman Matt Strawn told The Hill.
"It's not just the bold-faced name endorsements that he's received...but it's been building out a large statewide network of local leaders that represent those various constituencies."
But as his numbers and profile continue to rise, Cruz has deepened his feud with Rubio, who has also seen a rise in polls and profile, through barbsin the media, in dueling statements, and through surrogates.
This week, Cruz has begun to try to paint Rubio as a liberal, framing his rival's foreign policy as in line with that of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, along with members of the GOP establishment.
And when Fox News' Bill Hemmer asked him about the battle with Rubio, Cruz noted a recent work by conservative columnist Mark Levin that called Rubio's attacks on his record in the vein of noted left-wing community organizer Saul Alinsky. Cruz and other conservatives have repeatedly sought to slight President Obama with comparisons to Alinsky.
"What Mark Levin said is that Rubio is engaging in Alinskyite tactics of simply lying," he said Wednesday on "America's Newsroom."
"That's Mark Levin calling him out, and the reason is understandable."
Kellyanne Conway, who heads the pro-Cruz super-PAC Keep the Promise Icontends Rubio sounds good, but is not sound in his positions.
"Rubio can win a debate, but you have to win the argument," she added.
"Every six or seven weeks, people will say, 'Rubio won the debate,' but the nominee is the person that ends up wining the argument. You win the argument by showing up in front of people in the states that vote early and engaging with them."
Most strategists see Iowa as Cruz's best chance at a victory in the first two nominating states.
Cruz has had 91 campaign events over 41 days in Iowa, good for fourth place out of GOP candidates according to the Des Moines Register, and ahead of every other candidate towards the top of the polls.
But Rubio has been criticized for not spending as much time as other candidates in the early states, especially New Hampshire, where he sits in second place. He's held 36 events in the Granite State, according to New England Cable News. That's three less than Cruz.
O'Connell said that their "inner squabble" is a big deal as far as who can emerge as Trump's biggest foil even though the "differences between them are so minute."
"Rubio wisely figured out that national security would be his ticket to the nomination, and with events lining up the way they are lining up, it was a very smart play. Cruz sees that and wants to find a way to tamp down Rubio," he said.
He added that the increasing emphasis on national security could be "extremely dangerous for Cruz-that's why he's busy...mitigating these attacks." Cruz repeatedly brings up Rubio's past support of a pathway to citizenship and casts him as a member of the party's establishment that have failed to win the White House over the last eight years.
But while the row with Rubio has bubbled straight to the surface, Cruz has repeatedly brushed aside every chance to take on Trump, even though he clearly stands in the way of the Texan's hopes of winning his party's nomination.
As fellow candidates piled onto the real estate magnate after he called on Monday to ban Muslim immigration, Cruz briefly noted his disagreement but refused to take it any further.
But Cruz's public face has been tested by a New York Times report that Cruz privately questioned Trump's judgment.
That prompted a rebuke on Twitter from Trump, who said: "Looks like [Cruz] is getting ready to attack. I am leading by so much he must. I hope so, he will fall like all others. Will be easy!"
But Cruz has repeatedly distanced himself from those comments by issuing a statement calling the Times "misleading," despite the paper posting audio from the fundraiser, and firing off a tweet of his own calling his rival "terrific."
Instead, Cruz hopes that Trump fades and that his decision to avoid attacking the front-runner means Trump's supporters will move to him.
"People don't like to see the schoolyard squabbles, particularly in a primary," Texas state Sen. Koni Burton, a Cruz supporter who knocked on doors for the campaign in Iowa this week, told The Hill.
Strawn, the former Iowa GOP chair, added that the calculus might also be based on the notion that a significant portion of Trump's supporters in the state have never participated in a caucus before. That means the main factor for Trump - turnout -- is out of Cruz's control, so there's little use in getting down in the mud.
Not only does playing nice with Trump have its benefits, but so does his extreme views, which have helped recast Cruz as more moderate by comparison.
"Who would have thought that the following sentence would come out of people's mouths: 'Ted Cruz is the reasonable alternative.' But it has because every candidacy is a reaction to the other candidates in the field," Conway said, noting the "surprise surges" by Trump and Carson.
"They are coalescing around Cruz because voters have a reasonable expectation that their nominee will have thought about policy at least as much as they have."
For a politician whose short career in Congress has been made in part by scorched-Earth tactics, it's an unfamiliar ground.
"Cruz has completely changed his M.O," O'Connell said.
"In Washington, he's always standing up and making spectacles on the Senate floor. Now that he's running for president, he's trying to paint the exact opposite of how he's acted in Washington."
While his allies are confident in the plan, they agree with strategists that Cruz just has to continue the methodical strategy with so many unknowns still looming.
"The greatest threat to Sen. Cruz right now is what we don't know. You can try to predict turnout, you don't know if there's going to be a 'January surprise,' will any drop out, will any fall flat on the debate stage?" Conway said.
"Nobody knows what the contours of the race will look like a month from now."
Go Ted!
Nice!
“Instead, Cruz hopes that Trump fades and that his decision to avoid attacking the front-runner means Trump’s supporters will move to him. “
And that’s where he loses.
Trump’s support is not malleable.
His base is made up of people that are part of a political movement/revolution. If he’s not there, those people (many of them independents and disaffected Democrats) vanish.
And the worse part is that it’s a candidate that avoided confrontation, allowed the other candidates to go after Trump and then flame-out, and then expects to play the “above it all” act into the nomination.
The biggest problem is that he cant pull that in a general election. He wont be able to find enough church ladies to turn a state to the red column, nor does he have the organization to actively contest the media wing of the DNC.
He also cant avoid attacking Hillary in hopes that she “fades”.
I agree with your points. IMO they need each other. Obviously, so do those who keep trying to set them up to destroy each other. That they are rivals does not require that they be enemies. That tactic stinks of Rove, Bush, Clinton and Priebus types.
Here’s another interesting tidbit about the CR reviews....
Have you noticed that Breitbart also uses them, embedded in articles after the candidates name is mentioned. That is, all candidates except Trump. Hmmmm...wonder why that is. Maybe because even they know the ‘poll/rating’ (whatever they want to call it, today) is so skewed, against Trump...even rates Rubio higher than Trump....lol.
Anyway...I’ve read (here) that Breitbart gets the same ad $$ (from PACs) that some of these ‘ratings’ outfits are getting, so maybe that has something to do with it? Who knows?
Cruz’s plan ? Draft Trump, hope the GOPe does enough damage to Trump so his support settles for Trump lite.
Not really a complicated deal.
I’ve started to think of them as the icebreaker and the love boat.
Please click on the pictures at the top of the columns for more details on the ratings of the candidates.
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More at Conservative Review: https://www.conservativereview.com/2016-presidential-candidates
Note: If you don't like the ratings for any reason, please contact Conservative Review's Editor-in-Chief, "The Great One," Mark Levin. But I have to warn you that you may get this response from him: "GET OFF THE PHONE, YOU BIG DOPE!"
Except, of course, that it’s completely false. Unless you think “best” is a bloviating boor without a discernible conservative track record and in fact, quite a progressive statist track record. If that’s what you think after consuming copious quantities of trump koolaid...then Capt Kardashian is most definitely your guy.
If he got the nomination, I am pretty sure a man with the intelligence of Ted Cruz wouldn’t sit back in a one on one scenario hoping that Hillary fades. Whether he wins or not, I think I would place my bets on Cruz knowing the right course for his campaign over pretty much ANY message board junkie.
‘the icebreaker and the love boat’
Cute!
You raise very good points, all of them valid.
The fact is, Trump’s appeal cuts across party lines, and disaffected Democrats the old ‘Reagan Democrats’ who have been laying low, nearly dormant for decades WOULD come out of the shadows to vote for Trump in the general election.
IF Trump were unable to win the nomination, and Cruz prevailed at the convention, if it was a fair and square win by Cruz, I believe Trump would stay with the GOP, urge his supporters to vote for Cruz, and that he would do all that he could to see Cruz elected.
Having said that, Democrats are in fact more terrified of the prospect of a Cruz presidency because they equate him with all sorts of liberal-RAT nightmares, ‘another Joe McCarthy’, ‘Reagan on steroids’, and so on. They would likely coalesce AGAINST Cruz for that very reason.
Assuming that Hiliarly is the ‘RAT nominee, could Cruz out debate her? Unquestionably. Would Cruz do that with a smile on his face? I am certain of it.
But could he DESTROY her, as Trump would do?
That remains to be seen. Trump would rightly call her every name in the book, shake his finger at her and proclaim that she has “blood on her hands”, he would blast and bellow and go for the jugular which quite frankly, is what it is going to take to rattle the Hildabeast and drive a political stake through the area where her heart is supposed to be.
To employ a boxing analogy, Cruz is not unlike ‘Gentleman Jim Corbett’, a true champion who is universally viewed as having transformed boxing into a ‘scientific’ competition.
Trump? He can box, but he is a brawler and a street fighter (WWE, *literally* lol) and that is what it is probably going to take to win next year.
Yes. Why any of the candidates think that if they can get Trump out, they will get his supporters mystifies me.
What scorecard are you referring to that I spammed?
Love it.
How Ted Cruz plans to winHang around hoping someone better than him dies or kills themselves because he's not capable on his own merits.
It's not a winner's strategy, it's a loser's strategy
It’s a sad commentary on this country that the current leaders contain two out of the three who aren’t qualified to even be in the race.
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