Top conservatives meet at secret dinner to discuss Cruz's future

The Hill ^ | 6/15/2016 | Jonathan Swan

[lodi90]

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) attended a confidential dinner with more than 20 top conservatives on Tuesday night to plan his comeback as a movement leader in the mold of Ronald Reagan.

The dinner was at the Virginia home of conservative activist Brent Bozell, and the agenda was to plot Cruz’s future and the future of the conservative movement. The undertone of the dinner was about how to position Cruz for a future tilt at the presidency and to spearhead the conservative movement from his seat in the Senate, those in attendance said.

Dining with Cruz and his chief of staff, Paul Teller, were some of the most powerful figures in the conservative movement.

The spectrum of economic, national security and social conservatives seated at the table included Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint, Club for Growth President David McIntosh, direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie, National Rifle Association board member and former Cincinnati Mayor Ken Blackwell, and Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser, sources confirmed.

According to those in attendance, the leaders discussed how they could work more effectively together and how to harness their vast financial and human networks in the service of conservative principles and Cruz's career.

Combined, those at the table have access to hundreds of millions of dollars and some of the largest ground armies on the right.

There was no specific discussion of electoral politics or whether Cruz will support presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump this cycle.

Many of the leaders at the dinner want Cruz to run for president again, and they are viewing Cruz’s unsuccessful 2016 run as similar to Reagan’s failed attempt in 1976 to unseat the incumbent Republican president, Gerald Ford.

[mkjessup]

This foolish fantasy that Cruz and his most extreme cult followers persist in, is not credible. All the pathetic attempts to paint that Cuban-Canadian import as “The Next Reagan” and Cruz was never bashful about drawing comparisons between our 40th President and himself.

Cruz is attempting to make history repeat itself, and this year (2016) is in his mind, just like 1976 when the Gipper fell short of delegates at the GOP convention that year, and President Gerald Ford prevailed.

Unlike Reagan, Cruz has continued to pout like the petulant child he is. Reagan supported President Ford in '76 without reservation because Reagan knew that Carter would be a disaster for America, and he was right. That ‘RAT Jimmy Carter presided over 4 of the most incompetent and destructive years in America’s history pre-Obama, and that led to the conservative tidal wave which was Ronald Reagan, triumphant in 1980.

This is all about Cruz attempting to live out his life as a crypto-fantasy of a reincarnated Reagan. But unlike Cruz, Reagan ran a clean campaign, didn’t run his rallies like religious tent revivals, and did not preach to the crowds about the necessity to “raise up and energize the Body of Christ” like Elmer Gantry.

Cruz’ strategy is to do everything possible to undermine Donald Trump, he is a closet #NEVERTRUMPER as are many of his supporters, and it is very likely that he believes that 4 years of Hillary Rotten Criminal would pave the way for a victory in 2020, exactly 40 years after the Reagan landslide, and some students of Biblical history will tell you that 40 years is considered a generation which to Cruz would probably indicate the Almighty’s seal of approval, but we'll wait for his wyld preacher daddy to confirm that.

Cruz has burned his bridges and he'll be lucky if he even gets re-elected to his Senate seat. The voters of Texas don't like being lied to, and he told a whopper either by design or by omission when he "forgot" to inform the electorate that he was still a Canadian citizen at the time he was seeking to become their Senator.

As for Ronald Reagan?

We all knew Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan was a friend of ours, and Ted Cruz is NO Ronald Reagan.

[Iron Munro]

[Sybeck1]

Reagan got behind Ford in 76 right? He didn’t sulk and scheme and prayers for the Carter years did he?

[Rebel2016]

Cruz is not the only one. Ben Sasse, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan etc. all want Trump to fail this year so they can run in 2020. Talk about delusional

[heights]

PLO

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

These are the true conservatives who up to this point Trump is not courting. Hopefully he will at some point soon.

"True conservatives" don't need to be "courted" to cast their votes against the Butcheress of Benghazi.

Period. End of.

[Reno89519]

They cannot fix his Canadian birth, nor their overall treachery. Be gone with me all. NEVER WILL I SUPPORT LYN’ TED.

[trisham]

Correct.

[Iron Munro]

If these idiots don’t get on the Trump Train pretty quick their future will consist of eating President Hillary’s leftovers.

[LS]

I certainly did not get what you said from the article. I got that they were trying to position Cruz as some new (defeated) party leader.

The problem is nobody in any position of power follows him. He had ONE semi-supporter in the Senate. He couldn’t get ONE GOP senator to attend his climate change hearings. That is pathetic.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

This is all about Cruz attempting to live out his life as a crypto-fantasy of a reincarnated Reagan Moses.

[patq]

Cruz is damaged goods. He should be tossed on the trash heap where he belongs. Throw his psycho goldman sachs wife in there for good measure.

[mylife]

I hear ya brother.

[Sirius Lee]

I went from being his biggest supporter to loathing him as much as I loathe mcdonnell or hillary or maggots.

[VanDeKoik]

They are professional complainers and contrarians.

Tell you that this election is what will “decide the fate of civilizations”, and then they go off and pout, and decide they don’t need to participate in this election unless Trump crawls to them.

[miss marmelstein]

Bravo, Mark! You hit it out of the park.

Cruz needs to reform himself, not us, before he can present himself as a Republican presidential candidate. If he can do that, I’ll support him. If not, to hell with him.

[okie01]

I could NOT STAND Cruz’s preachy way of speaking it was just intolerable !!!!

And Palin's accent was absolutely unbearable.

You gotta love how some "conservatives" make judgments on such substantive grounds.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

I was talking about Trump. He’s the one running for President now.

[Sir Napsalot]

>>> Private conversations with sources at the dinner kept turning up the same analogy: Reagan came back to win the presidency in 1980. And Cruz, they think, can do the same in 2020.

Looks like these people already threw in the towel for president Hillary, I don’t want to share their enthusiasm about 2020.

[The Citizen Soldier]

Whatever Cruz’s future is, it must include Winnepeg!