Posted on 04/15/2016 8:14:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
It's one thing to be upset with the so-called Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Barack Obama and his destructive policies, but it's another for a GOP presidential candidate to exploit that anger illegitimately against a fellow anti-establishment candidate.
Many of us have been critical of the GOP leadership for opposing conservatives in GOP primaries, not backing conservatives in office trying to do the right thing, always advising that Republicans dilute their message to attract independent voters and not sufficiently recognizing the threat President Obama represents to this nation and opposing his agenda.
From the beginning, grass-roots conservatives, based on abundant warning signs, warned that Obama would be an extremely progressive president, and we were right. Despite Obama's empty promise to be bipartisan and conciliatory, we knew what a rabid partisan he would be. We took him seriously when he announced he would fundamentally transform America, and he has done just that, probably even more than we feared.
I wrote two books chronicling Obama's destructive agenda, and those were before the past two years, when he has been even worse -- across the board. He has increased spending and taxes and refused to reform entitlements, thus doubling our national debt to exceedingly dangerous levels. He has deliberately downscaled our military, also to perilous levels. He has unilaterally pulled us back from the war on terror, being more concerned about not offending Muslims than with defending American citizens. He has chosen not to enforce our borders. He has systematically abused his executive authority, flouting the Constitution. He has engaged in a war on conventional energy sources and promoted failed alternative energy sources. He has grossly expanded the administrative and regulatory state. He has orchestrated the corruption of the IRS and enabled the gunrunning operation "Fast and Furious." He has engaged in a war on religious liberty, exclusively against Christians. He has precipitously
withdrawn from Iraq, thus squandering our work and betraying our lost lives and treasure. He has pushed a liberal social agenda, from increasing federal funding for abortion to ramrodding the legalization of same-sex marriage. He has led from behind in all aspects of foreign policy, alienating our allies, including Israel, and coddling our enemies -- especially facilitating Iran's quest to obtain nuclear weapons and fund global terrorism. He has reversed welfare reform and its progress in restoring the nuclear family and freeing people from its insidious clutches of dependency. He has severely damaged our health care system, and he has divided the nation more than any previous president along the lines of race, gender and income. And so much more.
I don't want to write a third book on Obama, though he's not finished doing his mischief. He would love, for example, to replace Justice Antonin Scalia with an activist liberal judge and issue more lawless executive orders granting benefits to people here illegally and promoting environmentalism. People have a right to be very upset, not just with Obama but with the GOP establishment for not doing enough to stop him.
Though we must keep fighting Obama, we also must turn part of our focus away from him and toward electing the Republican candidate best-equipped to reverse the damage Obama has done, reignite economic growth, secure our defenses, rebuild our foreign alliances and stand for life and American families.
Seventeen candidates originally threw their hats into the ring for the Republican presidential nomination, and the field has narrowed to three, though the third -- John Kasich -- has no earthly chance and can only be considered as a spoiler or a brand builder or as positioning himself to be vice president.
Trump holds himself out as an outsider because he's never held office before. Ted Cruz is an outsider, in the sense that he has openly battled the establishment elements of his own party since he came to the Senate.
Most GOP elected officials have still not endorsed either Trump or Cruz, but as much angst as establishment types have for Cruz, most fear Trump far more, not because he's an outsider but because they think he could be a disastrous president.
Trump wants to establish himself as the sole outsider and is strenuously trying to paint Cruz as an insider, citing a few recent high-profile Republican endorsements and the effort of Mitt Romney and others to stop him. Trump supporters say Cruz has sold out to the establishment for these reasons and because he is the most likely beneficiary of the "Never Trump" movement.
Trump has also wrongly charged that Cruz colluded with the establishment to "steal" Colorado. In this way, Trump hopes to seal his claim to be the sole aggrieved outsider. He says that working together, they cheated and disenfranchised millions of voters.
Trump knows full well that Colorado wasn't stolen and that he began there on a level playing field with Cruz, but he didn't do the necessary groundwork to compete. But he also knows that his supporters will believe otherwise and become more entrenched if he cries foul loudly enough. He hopes to draw supporters away from Cruz and woo the undecided in upcoming states by leveraging these allegations in service to establishment/Cruz conspiracy theories.
Trump is now laying the groundwork to support the narrative that unless he is chosen at the convention, the nomination will have been stolen from him. Trump knows that long-standing rules require that a candidate win more than half the delegates, before or during the convention, yet he's demanding, in essence, that the candidate with a plurality of delegates going in must be anointed, which has never been the case.
Many of us have been fighting the establishment for years, but let's not lose our heads and make it the scapegoat for everything, including the claims that it is stealing votes and disenfranchising voters. Trump is pursuing a reckless path, because he is inflaming the passions of people who are already fit to be tied, partially for legitimate reasons. He is setting the table for post-convention antipathy, which would inhibit reunification of the party should Cruz get the nomination -- and even if Trump were to get it.
If there were actual cheating going on, I would decry it from the highest mountain, but it is just as wrong to allege cheating when it isn't occurring for your own political benefit. Could we please dispense with these ridiculous allegations and get on with this process without further enraging the voters?
If the delegates do not reflect the voters, it’s rigged.
If the voters don’t get to vote, it’s rigged.
If the delegates do not reflect the voters, it’s rigged.
If the voters don’t get to vote, it’s rigged.
That being said.....his campaign says they are turning things around and will be fighting for the delegates in the same manner.....and expect to have 1237 by June.
If he's able to do that.....I can overlook the whining because he's gotten his act together.
“Yet Cruz had no problem using the Fields incident to gain polictically”
And before that, the Chicago fascists.
And, quite perversely, these same Trumpinators also say that Cruz [is] Losing Support of Fellow Republicans (because he STILL fights Mitch on funding Planned Parenthood) ... one more perversity that on FR these days fighting PP is twisted as somehow a bad thing!?
Trump supporters can't get their story straight. Ted Cruz cannot be both gopE and one who has lost their support?! (all the while Trump infers that he will work with and "get long" with the gopE through the art of the backroom deal cajoling with Mitch)?
However if Trump had used competent people he could have found out and campaigned in Colorado, just like Cruz did. It's his fault and no one else's
Kasich had a lot of ground game in CO.
Cruz dined like a vulture on the delegates prepared for Jeb, without acknowledging how they were prepared.
He broke no rules and he is a vulture who proudly fed off a scam at the expense of 1,000,000 voters. There is no evidence of leadership in that, no matter how much you try to rationalize that mere cleverness is the qualification we want in the next president.
I won't say that Cruz is a bad man, though I may suspect it strongly. I will say though that he is not entirely a man. There are parts missing in him - mentally, in his character, and spiritually - no matter how much he'd like you to think that quoting verse and lofty philosophies and legalisms, preparing and practicing sharp debate and rhetorical points, is a substitute for character or ability.
Trump's faults on on the outside, clear for all to see. Cruz doesn't even know half of his, and the rest he considers assets but hides. Usually he's not even Lyin' Ted, he's Sneakin' Ted, Clever Ted.
A baby picture of a Trump supporter
If the voters don’t get to vote in the primaries it’s rigged.
Getting to vote in the general election between two candidates offered up by the uniparty is not a free election.
If the voters don’t get to vote in the primaries it’s rigged.
Getting to vote in the general election between two candidates offered up by the uniparty is not a free election.
I've now switched to Laura, who has the same time slot where I live. She invites lots of guests and callers who are Cruz/GOPe supporters onto the show and lets them have their say; but whether it's a caller or a guest, the instant they start lyin', they get stopped in their tracks and challenged. This was also what I liked about Neil Boortz.
Cruz wears the mask of the revolutionary, taking shots at the weakest of the old guard, selling the revolution back to the old guard in deals off camera.
Most of mankind has been doing this since the beginning of time. It's the most common thing in the world, almost to the point that you can't criticize him for it.
In that way, Cruz is just a run of the mill, common, skilled pol. Woohoo! Go Ted!
Believe me, Ted Cruz is not a change agent. He's cement, epoxy, masquerading as pure water.
Colorado was stolen from the voters by the establishment Republicans.
No it wasn’t. But continue to tell yourself it was.
Trump has cast quite a spell on his followers. This is how you get people riled up over something they don’t understand.
My hunch is you didn’t read the article because it would deny you of your “Trump wuz robbed” meme
The things Trumpers tell themselves. Yet we are told by the Trumpers that he is our only Savior...ROFLMAO!!!!
The voters, BTW, are also noticing Trump’s behaviors. I’m talking those outside the bubble. That’s why every poll has him losing to Hillary. Every one.
You’re trying to follow Trumper “logic”
It’ll never work. These are the same people who on one hand will tell you because trump doesn’t understand the delegate process he’s being robbed and in the next sentence will tell you he’s our only hope for turning America around
Believe me, Ted Cruz is not a change agent.
Maybe not
But we’ll ignore the fact that he took on the Senate over Obamacare with the unpopular mandate that Trump said himself he liked ;)
Dave L. sure used alot of words to say, "I hate Trump!" What a flapping ass hole.
> Ted Cruz is an outsider
Forgive me if I don’t buy this one from a member of the establishment media. They are really trying to convince us of this for some reason.
Here’s a clue: Harvard lawyers are NOT outsiders. Ever.
YES!
And that is why I haven't given any money to the RNC since the mid 1980s. I figured it out then; I'm sure you can figure it out now.
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