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Cruz has no real meaningful political success that he can point to. Obama had just as little success. Arguably Obama is worse, he literally did nothing in eight years in the Illinois Senate. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that as a Senator Cruz hasn’t done anything other than get conservatives excited and annoy John McCain and GOP leadership. I’ll freely admit annoying John McCain is great fun and the Cruz filibuster was amusing. It takes more to be President though. What meaningful political accomplishment can Cruz point to?

What has Cruz led over the last two years? So far as I can tell he’s responsible for an amusing filibuster and not much else.

One of the reasons why Reagan was so good is because he got his teeth wet as Governor of California. He knew how to lead an executive branch, which allowed him to focus on bigger picture issues. When a President doesn’t know how to lead an executive branch of government their Presidential honeymoon gets bogged down in them learning the job. Obama and Kennedy both had this problem.

Not everyone is a good executive manager, not everyone is cut out for it. Obama is terrible at managing and that trickles down to everything he does. My issue with Cruz isn’t that he’s wrong on issues, he isn’t wrong on anything so far. I question though why we should throw our weight behind someone who has no track record of getting the job done. We certainly want someone who will actually be able to do something for the conservative cause while in office. With no track record of success, why should we simply trust Cruz is capable? Especially so early in the primary race.

I think Governors have the sort of executive governing experience that a Senator simply doesn’t have. In that respect, I prefer former Governors. That isn’t exclusive though. If Cruz was a 10 year veteran of the Senate, with a list of accomplishment I may very well get behind him. My issue is that he’s only been in the Senate for two years, exactly the same as Obama when he announced he was running for President in 2007. Obviously Cruz and Obama are politically on opposite sides of the spectrum but they do share inexperience in common.

1. I am not being paid to oppose Ted Cruz
2. I am not supporting another candidate, I have not endorsed any candidate and am unlikely to do so until a week or so before the Michigan primary.
3. I do believe in conservative principles which is why Cruz troubles me. It isn’t that Cruz isn’t a conservative, he is. I don’t simply want a conservative to be President, I want a conservative who will be effective as President. There just isn’t any evidence that Cruz will be effective, largely because he has no experience. He’s never gotten anything done in the Senate, which is understandable considering he’s only been there two years.

You have missed my point. The issue isn’t whether Ted Cruz will be better than Obama. Because he is right on so many issues and a Constitutionalist he will be better by default. So would nearly all the Republicans, with perhaps the exception of Jeb Bush. Heck, even Bush is to the right of Obama so arguably he would be better.

The issue though isn’t whether Cruz is better than Obama, the issue is whether Cruz can govern better than the other conservatives running in this election. My point in bringing up Obama is that when you look at his political career and Cruz, they’re at the same point when they each ran for President. Obama was a two year Senator, so is Cruz. Obama had no executive governing experience, neither does Cruz. There’s a lesson to be learned from Obama based on how poorly he’s managed the executive branch. That lesson goes beyond ideology, it hits at actual governing and decision making.

Obama has gotten remarkably little done legislatively, not because Republicans impede him but because he’s an incompetent negotiator. He got very little done when he had a filibuster proof Congress, again because he doesn’t know how to build relationships or negotiate. These are the sort of things you learn how to do when you’re a Governor or a Senator for more than two years before you run for President.

You can have the set of rules by which you govern down pat but if you cannot effectively manage what good are the rules? Part of managing is knowing and understanding other people’s skill sets and putting them in positions that utilize those skill sets. That isn’t something that comes naturally to all people and for all people it takes a little time to learn. It’s one of the reasons why Obama is so bad, there are advisers around him who are terrible at their job but he doesn’t fire them. Janet Napolitano was utterly inept as head of HHS, she wasn’t qualified for the position in the first place. Obama didn’t fire her.

My point is that there’s more to being President than having the right principles and we should be considering that end of things a little more on the right because we want someone who isn’t just right but effective.

How would Cruz roll back the harm done by Obama? I understand Cruz would likely roll back many of Obama’s more absurd regulations. What’s he going to do legislatively? How is he going to convince his own party to repeal Obamacare? Presumably he’ll have to offer some sort of replacement, if only because the liberal end of the party will demand as such. What is that going to look like and will he be able to get it through Congress? I can almost guarantee by summer 2017 if Cruz is elected there will be dozens of people here on FR calling him a sellout and a turncoat because he’s going to be forced to compromise on some piece of legislation despite having a Republican Congress.

Obama did the same thing in 2009-2010, remember he wanted single payer socialist healthcare, not Obamacare. He wanted more significant Wall Street regulations, he was forced to compromise. He wasn’t able to pass amnesty, he wasn’t able to pass Cap & Trade, he wasn’t able to pass a massive tax hike, he was forced to compromise on his Stimulus bill etc. One of the main reasons why Obama wasn’t successful his first two years is because he was inexperienced. He didn’t have any executive experience and because he hardly spent any time in the Senate he had no real relationships there and he didn’t have a feel for how things worked in Congress. You don’t want to hear it but Cruz is in the same position.

The legal distinction between setting up a Presidential exploratory committee and formally announcing a run for President is nothing more than a legal fiction. Cruz and Bush are the only two who have formally announced, the others have set up exploratory committees. Can anyone tell the difference between the two states of campaign being? Of course not.

Do we want a President that is successful in governing from a conservative standpoint or do we want a President who is right on all the issues but has no idea how to govern? I will grant that Cruz has all the right viewpoints. However what evidence is there that he can be successful as President? He has no executive governing experience. He has as little legislative experience as Obama did in 2007. He has just as many accomplishments as Obama did in 2007 in the Senate: Zero. That’s not a knock on Cruz, it’s just a statement of fact. We don’t know whether he has what it takes to be successful as President because he has no experience. It seems to me this election is too important to risk on someone as inexperienced as Obama.

It’s absurd to believe Cruz is the only conservative running. In fact, it’s objectively false.

I’ve been on FR for a year posting on any number of topics. I’m not here to troll for Walker or any candidate.

Why do you think Cruz wins the White House hands down if he gets the nomination? I think he wins if he gets the nomination, I feel the same way about Walker. I can see Cruz losing though, in part because he’s not really experienced as a campaigner. Cruz can run a campaign in a primary but he’s never had to run a serious campaign against a Democrat. No one can question Walker’s ability to campaign against the left, his three wins in Wisconsin speak for themselves.

We will agree though that Bush would lose, probably no matter who the Democrats nominate. His brother will impede his ability to obtain independent votes, his views will keep conservatives at home.

I’m also lost how Walker represents the middle of the GOP. Union busting isn’t really associated with being a moderate.

There are more issues out there than amnesty. The problem I have with Cruz is that he hasn’t accomplished anything in the Senate. There isn’t a single bill that he’s pushed through the Senate successfully. You could have said the same thing about Obama back in 2007. If Cruz can’t work with other Senators to get a bill passed, what makes you think he’ll be successful as President?

That’s why we lose elections, only our guy is a conservative and the rest are heretics to the cause and unworthy of even the slightest consideration.

I agree that Walker needs to state his position on amnesty and the border. He seems to have backed off of some previous comments that appeared to support some form of amnesty. I would like him to give a speech laying out his position.

I hope you’re right that Cruz and Walker rise above the rest. I’m confident Walker will, he’s a skilled campaigner. Cruz I’m less sure about, mostly because he’s only run one meaningful statewide race and that was for the GOP nomination for Senate.

I will object to one thing you said. I would not refer to Cruz and Walker as the only “adults” in the race. We should not stoop to the level of the left (including Jeb Bush), which constantly refer to themselves as adults and to anyone who disagrees with them as children. We have better arguments than the left, we don’t need to join them in making unnecessary and meaningless attacks on our opponents. Our attacks on Jeb Bush are much more potent when we aren’t calling him names.

I’m pretty sure Walker isn’t running on amnesty, in fact he’s walked back his support of it. Reagan has admitted a number of political blunders, including amnesty, no-fault divorce and support for abortion funding. The point being you’re never going to come up with a perfect candidate. Each candidate is wrong on some issues and they all make mistakes while in office.

The 17th amendment is a huge problem because it entrenches the two party system. By having Senators accountable to the people, just like Congressmen, rather than the states their interests are no different and the Congress might as well be only one house.

We’ve seen in the last 20-30 years a shift away from two big tent parties. The Democrats have, once and for all, rid themselves of blue dog conservatives. The ideological battle in the Democrat Party isn’t between conservative and liberal but between fascists, socialists and communists. The battle is entirely on the left for them. The GOP now resembles what the Democrats used to look like. Our battle is between moderate, left of center types and conservatives. Like the old Democrats, the moderate to liberals control though they have to throw bones to conservatives once in awhile. The conservative error was not uniting Republican and Democrat conservatives in one party 75 years ago.

The writing is on the wall for us conservatives already. In just 20 years the Christian evangelical movement is completely dead. The government schools are churning out a generation of ignoramuses who don’t know how to think unless they’re told what is acceptable. The schools have been bad for a century, they have gotten exponentially worse in the last generation. With the Republicans slowly pushing conservative away and with our ranks dying off, in 25 years we may not exist as a political force anymore. That’s why this election is so important. A Walker or Cruz victory could put off that death another couple decades.

If the race were between Cruz, Walker and Bush I would not have a problem with both Walker and Cruz battling it out. My issue isn’t really with those two as much as it’s with Paul, Huckabee, Santorum, Rubio and whatever other conservatives throw their hat in the ring. As it stands now, we’re looking at 6-10 conservatives running. Our vote will get split apart, as will all the money. Meanwhile Bush has all the moderate money and most of their votes.

I really would prefer only one conservative run against Bush but I fully recognize that isn’t possible. We can, however, have fewer than 10 run and still end up with a solid conservative or two battle it out with Bush.