Republican Leaders Starting to See Ted Cruz as Best Anti-Trump Alternative

Breitbart ^ | 3/6/2016 | BREITBART NEWS

[20yearsofinternet]

*snip*

The wary interest in Cruz from more mainstream Republicans is the latest unexpected twist in a GOP race where talk of a contested convention or third-party candidate is becoming commonplace.

“If Ted’s the alternative to Trump, he’s at least a Republican and conservative,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said. While Graham made sure to note that it’s “not like I prefer Ted Cruz,” he encouraged Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich to “decide among themselves” whether they can be a realistic alternative to Trump.

Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, said Cruz is indeed “emerging” as the chief anti-Trump candidate.

“I think a lot of people were surprised by how well Ted Cruz did,” said Romney, who has thrust himself back into the political discussion with a searing takedown of Trump in a speech last week.

Romney has stepped back into the spotlight at a moment of crisis and chaos for the Republican Party. Leaders in Washington who assumed hard-liners such as Cruz represented a minority view have been left wondering if they’re the ones out of step with voters.

For months, GOP elites have lumped Trump and Cruz together, arguing that neither could win in November’s general election. Cruz is an uncompromising conservative who has publicly criticized party leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), for what he sees as a pattern of giving in too easily to President Barack Obama.

[LS]

So we now know who the true “outsider” is.

[Doogle]

....just another way of saying how much they are hated

[dynoman]

[napscoordinator]

Sure pick a guy who won 2 actual primaries and a bunch of little attended caucus’. Great plan GOPe. You know this crap will just make trump stronger. His speech he’s giving right now is awesome. The gravy train is ending GOPe. That’s what they hate.

[AllAmericanGirl44]

Got that right, and all the crud surrounding Cruz is getting out of hand. Has he denounced Beck yet??? Oh wait, he’s too sick to do the right thing?! What a flippin disaster.

[ObozoMustGo2012]

How many candidates have been “the one” that Trump has destroyed?

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

The plan of the GOP establishment at this point is simply to have a contested convention.

Ironic, since they have done everything in their power (Caucus and Primary schedule and rules, rule 40(b), debate schedules) to prevent a contested convention and have a coronation for their chosen candidate.

But now they have two wild lions in their camp ripping them apart, so they want to use them to attack each other in order to take both of them down.

Well, as I see it, Trump and Cruz together can make the establishment go cry in the corner for mommy if Trump will pick Cruz to be his running mate and Cruz gives Trump his delegates at the convention.

Game. Set. Match.

[Savage Rider]

Count to 10 and breathe slowly.

[Jeff Head]

I do not trust for any instant someone like Lindsey Graham. Neither should Cruz.

Graham will try and use Cruz to get to a brokered convention and then he and the rest of the GOPe will try and deny the nomination to Cruz at that point if they get there.

I believe it is patently obvious that the GOP voters are saying VERY LOUDLY that the do not want any GOPe candidate on the ticket.

IMHO, one of two things is going to happen.,

1. either Trump is going to win the nomination out right...with no brokering needed.

2. Trump and Cruz will fight for the nomination up to the convention with Trump having a lead, but being just short, and Cruz have a very sizable number of candidates.

If number 1 is the option, the trump should choose a non-establishment running mate and deny the establishment any position on the ticket.

If number 2 is what happens, then Trump and Cruz will have the delegates to hands down win this thing and that is what they should do. Combine...unite...and have a completely non-establishment ticket of Trump/Cruz with something like 80% of the delegates.

[Baldwin77]

[Jewbacca]

You can’t help who decides to support you, e.g., David Duke.

[dynoman]

Why are you making it about me?? It’s NOT about me.

[diamond6]

Read it and weep!

Silly, silly, silly.

Yeah. Cruz MUST be a cheater and a liar.

What a load of crap.

[Axeslinger]

well, of course Trump is an outsider...he’s a freakin’ liberal for pity’s sake!

[5thGenTexan]

I am fairly certain those “little attended caucuses” would garner a lot more significance in your mind if Trump had won them.

Delegate count is delegate count...and based on the last round, Cruz is gaining ground.

For Cruz’s situation, there is also the issue of where Rubio’s delegates go if he drops out. They still get to vote at the convention. Do you see those committing to Trump?

[dynoman]

There's more, for whatever it's worth. Certainly not anything different than what we see posted about Trump over and over and over;

Bloody Kansas (written before the KS caucus) http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/2016/03/bloody-kansas.html?m=1

The Power Behind Ted Cruz Election Fraud http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-power-behind-ted-cruz-election-fraud.html?m=1

Ted Cruz is Scared (very thought provoking) http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/2016/03/ted-cruz-is-scared.html?m=1

Proof of Ted Cruz Vote Fraud in Kansas and Maine http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/2016/03/proof-of-ted-cruz-vote-fraud-in-kansas.html?m=1

Read and think about it for a second. Not that it matters now...

If true there will be less of it in the primary states, especially the open primary states and ones that require ID.

Jeff Roe is from Kansas City. He’s a sleezebag. So was the guy Ted fired, and so is the guy that replaced him - busted for hiring illegal aliens - twice.

There’s no doubt Jeff is well versed in gutter politics.

---

“It was Mr. Roe who hired Mr. Tyler to be the Cruz campaign’s spokesman. (In an interview this month, Mr. Tyler said he had “learned a lot” from Mr. Roe. “Jeff wins,” Mr. Tyler said, adding, “I don’t think anything we’ve done is underhanded or deceptive or anything like that.”)

But back home, Mr. Roe’s allies and opponents alike have seen a familiar imprint in the Cruz campaign’s recent exploits, which have included a Photoshopped image of Mr. Rubio and the misleading suggestion, on the night of the Iowa caucuses, that Ben Carson was leaving the race.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/24/us/politics/ted-cruz-campaign-manager-jeff-roe.html?_r=0

---

All been done before by Jeff Roe. Then there is this;

---

"Political consultant Jeff Roe, who is based in Kansas City, is Ted Cruz's campaign manager — and the architect of the Texas senator's surprising first-place finish.

Roe is hardly a household name even amongst the political chattering class. (He has less than 6,000 Twitter followers.) Locally, he's most famous for commissioning the mean-spirited ad that upset State Auditor Tom Schweich and may have factored into his suicide, at least according to former U.S. Senator John Danforth, who blasted "politics that has gone so hideously wrong" in his funeral oration. Roe has been labeled "the Karl Rove of Missouri" — and the people calling him that don't consider it a compliment.

But as last night's results proved, he knows what he's doing. Cruz didn't just hold off all the other candidates vying for Iowa's large block of conservative voters. He did it even while beating Donald Trump. It was a wild, complicated race, and you have to respect the guy who figured out how to propel any candidate, much less one who's thoroughly loathed by everyone he meets, to victory.

In an interview with Chris Wallace a few weeks ago, Roe discussed a few secrets to his success — namely, a simple message and strong branding. Roe comes across as intensely analytical. He doesn't just know how long the average voter looks at a mailer (17 seconds); he knows how long he wants you to look at one touting Cruz (45 seconds). "When we communicate with the voter, we want it to be simple, clear and reinforce our candidate's brand," he says. For Cruz, that was "strong Christian conservative leader."

A recent New York Times Magazine piece delved more deeply into how Roe & Co. made those words resonate for Cruz, who'd hitherto been identified mostly as a conservative, not necessarily a Christian. Writes Robert Draper,

"One morning early in January, in the lobby of a public library in Onawa, Iowa, I listened to Cruz’s campaign manager, Jeff Roe, as he explained a central challenge of his previous few months. ‘‘Prior to March 23,’’ Roe said, ‘‘if you were to word-cloud ‘Ted Cruz,’ which we do every day — take all the Google mentions and Internet searches, dump them into a file and form a cloud — you can’t find ‘evangelical.’ ’’ In other words, voters were largely unaware of the Tea Party firebrand’s religious faith. To convince evangelicals that Ted Cruz was the ‘‘righteous’’ candidate, Roe told me, his team needed to sell him as such, from the very beginning: ‘‘Regardless of what you’ve got in the bank, you’d better determine the narrative of the campaign, and show that’s who we are, every day."

Last night's results suggest that effort worked beautifully.

Yes, Iowa is unusually dominated by evangelicals, and yes, if Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum are any indication, Cruz faces an uphill battle to get the Republican nomination, much less win a single state. But we have to hand it to Roe. Never before has a candidate that so many Americans find this intensely annoying managed to make it this far."

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2016/02/02/missouris-own-jeff-roe-was-the-wind-beneath-ted-cruzs-iowa-wings

---

Nothing like this is coming out about the Trump or Kasich campaigns. If there was anything like this going on with Trump the media would be screaming it from the rooftops.

[Uncle Miltie]

Eat that, Uniparty Elitist Sh*ts.

[onedoug]

In my interpretation of the Constitution, Cruz is not a “natural born Citizen”. Nor do I feel he would defeat Clinton.

But I also don’t believe two homosexuals constitute a marriage, states rights, or not. Thus, what do I know?

[Redleg Duke]

The “Kiss of Death” from the GOPe Mob.