Posted on 02/01/2016 10:28:42 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
I tip my cap, unreservedly, to Ted Cruz. With everything on the line - and so many GOP colleagues cowed and intimidated - he took on Donald Trump and won. Late last year I wrote that the GOP needed an actual leader, someone who would step up and take on Trump directly:
Now is the time. A presidential campaign is an early test of leadership, a proving ground for dealing with the challenges of the world's most difficult job. I don't want the last man standing. I want the guy who took down the king. If Trump can absorb the best shots from the Republican party's best young talent, then he deserves the nomination. If one of the two talented freshman senators can dethrone The Donald, then at least we have some assurance that they can first stand strong against the coming Clinton onslaught and then have the strength of will to lead a nation desperate not just for wisdom but for the right kind of tough-minded leadership.
Cruz challenged the king of polls - the man who'd intimidated so many others - and he won. And he did so when the conventional wisdom said that he'd lose - that the larger the turnout, the greater the chance that Trump would win. Instead, with record Iowa turnout, Cruz won.
This is a deeply encouraging moment for the conservative movement. To his immense and undying credit, Cruz refused to pander on ethanol, he defied Iowa's popular governor, and he stuck to his conservative principles - and he won.
Yes, Marco Rubio exceeded all expectations, but tonight was Ted Cruz's night. There is much hard fighting ahead, but had Trump won, we would even now be shuddering not just for the future of the conservative movement but for the future of a nation bounded and governed by constitutional principles. Cruz stood up when others fled. Iowa rewarded him for his courage, and tonight Cruz is ascendant, Trump is in retreat, and the conservative movement breathes the air of new life and new hope.
New Hampshire represents a different challenge, and the race is far from over, but Cruz deserves the accolades - and momentum - he'll get from Iowa. Well done, Ted. You did your part for your country on this crucial night.
Trump, on the other hand, is the very model of self-effacing modesty, isn't he?
Bigger than Iowa's?
Does Ted believe in the rapture doctrine? Most evangelicals I know do. If their rapture happens before November who will fill Ted’s spot?
"Apparently Texas Senator Ted Cruz can win a high turnout caucus. Nearly 190,000 Iowans turned out to caucus on Monday night, far exceeding anyone's wildest expectations. Cruz garnered an impressive 51,649 votes, making him the biggest Republican voter-getter in Iowa caucus history. Donald Trump posted 45,416 votes, 6,233 fewer than Cruz.
The surprise of the night was Cruz's ability to post over 50,000 votes, but also Marco Rubio's strong third place finish with 43,132 votes.
More in the morning."
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Yesterday:
Craig Robinson - Iowa Repubican: Why I don't Think Cruz will win Iowa
"I don't think Texas Senator Ted Cruz can win Iowa.
As you have all seen on these pages before, I'm one of the few people who don't think Cruz's record matches the persona he's built since running for the United States Senate in 2012. I'm also not impressed with the campaign he put together in Iowa. For all the talk of the Cruz campaign's vaunted ground game and use of analytics, I think it's just that, talk.
One would think that a campaign using analytics would focus its efforts where the voters are, yet the Cruz campaign prioritized hitting all 99 counties with a couple long bus tours in remote parts of the state instead of concentrating their efforts where they need to be strong.
National reporters have been obsessed about Camp Cruz, a dormitory on the AIB college of business in Des Moines, that houses out-of-state volunteers. These volunteers have made thousands of phone calls and knocked on doors, but caucus politics is more about a personal connection between the voter and the candidate than anything else. I'm not saying out-of-state volunteers are worthless. Other campaigns have them too, but there is a lot more to caucus campaigns than door-knocking and phone banking.".....
Actually, if he believes what his father preaches, he is an adherent to Dominionism. Which apparently says the Christians have to create the Kingdom of God on Earth without Jesus’ help. So the End of Days is not near and there is no need for a Rapture.
For example, see: https://jonathanturley.org/2013/10/12/ted-cruz-dominionism-and-jesus/
“U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz — whose father is Rafael Cruz, a rabid right-wing Christian preacher and the director of the Purifying Fire International ministry — and legions of the senator’s wealthy supporters, some of whom orchestrated the shutdown, are rooted in a radical Christian ideology known as Dominionism or Christian Reconstructionism.
This ideology calls on anointed “Christian” leaders to take over the state and make the goals and laws of the nation “biblical.” It seeks to reduce government to organizing little more than defense, internal security and the protection of property rights. It fuses with the Christian religion the iconography and language of American imperialism and nationalism, along with the cruelest aspects of corporate capitalism. The intellectual and moral hollowness of the ideology, its flagrant distortion and misuse of the Bible, the contradictions that abound within it — its leaders champion small government and a large military, as if the military is not part of government — and its laughable pseudo-science are impervious to reason and fact. And that is why the movement is dangerous.
Is my candidate flawed. Yes, he’s a human being.
Yes, I have learned about the priest Cruz. What has not been made clear yet, is how closely son Ted adheres to his dad’s doctrine. The evangelicals won, in their mind at least, but, I am not expecting evangelical Ted to campaign with the same message except in what are called Bible states.
It is curious to observe what campaign message gets used depending on which state the candidate campaigns.. I am curious to see how the candidates sell themselves as the primaries move forward... If Jesus won in Iowa, will he also win in New Hampshire, etc.?
Congratulations to Ted Cruz. I am voting for Trump in my primary in Georgia but will vote for either in the general election - gladly.
What distresses me most of all is that Marco “Amnesty Snake” Rubio did so well there. I am guessing that Jeb’s former PAC billionaires are huddling around together trying to decide when they’ll jump to Marco. Good that Jeb did so poorly - Bad that Marco did so well.
Yet he wasn’t very much ahead of Rubio, whom few had expected to do well. Now, as candidates start to drop out, who will their supporters move towards? I cannot say for certain. But I suspect, despite what Trump’s fans say, that Trump’s demeaning, insulting, and bragging will alienate these voters and they’ll move either to Cruz or Rubio. We’ll see. Trump’s obnoxious and self-aggrandizing shtick may have caused him to peak below even what national polls have been suggesting.
Trump’s example of a sinful life may indeed play well in New England. That was a good point you made.
Well, anyone can look at my posting history and see that from the start of this I said that if it was entirely up to me alone I would choose Cruz to be president.
My only problem with Cruz is I have doubts he can beat Hillary in the general.
This is because it will take someone with brass balls to call Hillary out as a cheat and liar.
If Cruz can muster the gumption to do this, and get the funds to get it on the air, I’m all in with him!
I do so hope he was not involved in a reported scheme whereby people were told Carson had left the contest and that their votes would be best placed in the Cruz column.... I don’t think he would do this...
If it comes down to it I hope Trump would run as Cruz’s VP so they could use his vast fortune to fund the campaign... this would be an ultimate test of Trump’s love of country!
Here’s hoping for the best....
I just love the pious, holier than thou types...all sin. You are aware bearing false witness ranks right up there with adultery? Right? Thank goodness The Heavenly Father keeps the only record that counts. I myself have heard Cruz lie, came across the boob tube through the air waves.
No. Everyone said Trump had no ground game and that his supporters wouldn’t show up to caucus.
Now they are trying to back pedal
Or maybe Donald Trump will adjust his shtick to fit the new situation. Tonight’s speech was a departure from his normal stump speech. He said he will sound different when he is President. Who knows? The man is a marketing genius and he has been planning this for years.
My belief in my fellow Americans is beginning to be restored! Let’s carry their victory all the way to an d through the election!
I kinda feel sorry for you. Believe what you choose but I do not think you live in reality. Open borders is the agenda, and Cruz is not going to stop the powers that be.
Correct. Cruz outperforms Trump handily in the general.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_presidential_race.html
He might. Sanders would do much better than Hillary in the general. But Cruz still does better against him by 2 points compared to Trump.
Obama and McCain got sued for eligibility too. These kind of nuisance lawsuits never go anywhere.
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