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I just got today's Hotline from National Journal. It is behind a pay wall, but it is worth noting their top story confirms what I have been seeing and hearing. Josh Kraushaar writes, It's the $64,000 question for establishment-minded Republicans: Would they rather see Ted Cruz or Donald Trump win the Iowa caucuses, assuming none of the more moderate candidates prevail? In an informal survey of senior GOP strategists, the clear winner was Trump. Their arguments were reasoned but underscored: a) how they're still underestimating Trump; and b) how much they personally hate Cruz to the point where emotion is...

The hatchets are out for Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX).In their desperation to stop the chief rival to Donald Trump and Marco Rubio/Chris Christie/John Kasich/Jeb Bush for the Republican nomination, both the Trump crowd and the establishment Republicans have now unleashed a barrage of scurrilous attacks on Cruz. I have no problem with hard-nosed politics. But I despise cheap and false campaign hits, and have defended candidates including Trump, Ben Carson and Marco Rubio from such nonsense.Now, I'll have to defend Cruz on three fronts.Eligibility. Trump raised the eligibility question several weeks ago as a ridiculous ploy to distract attention from...

On Tuesday night President Obama delivered the yearly State of the Union address to the nation. This is an event where the President speaks to how well the nation is doing under his management. It is also an event in which the opposition party stages politically motivated gestures to gain some much needed publicity and the Washington D.C. pundit class spends hours analyzing it all. The “opposition” party this year was the Republican Party. This year the Republican Establishment chose the Governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, to deliver their response to the President Obama’s State of the Union (S.O.T.U.)...

NEW ORLEANS -- Striding up the sidewalk of one of this city's most affluent neighborhoods on Monday evening, S. Scott Sewell seemed an unlikely figure to be attending a fund-raiser for Senator Ted Cruz. An oil industry executive, Mr. Sewell served in President George Bush's administration, lent a hand to George W. Bush's 2000 presidential recount, and was twice a chairman for Mitt Romney's Louisiana campaigns. But if such a creature of the Republican establishment appeared an odd fit to support a candidate whose political identity was shaped challenging his party's leadership, the candlelit, art-filled setting for Mr. Cruz's reception...

This is really damn amazing. I mean really amazing. I told you guys the Republican Establishment was coming to terms with Donald Trump because they hate Ted Cruz so much. This is another data point.Follow this story from the Politico. A leading Republican pollster privately told Speaker Paul Ryan and his leadership team Sen. Ted Cruz would be the biggest drag on House Republicans should he win his party's nomination, according to multiple sources who attended a small meeting of senior GOP lawmakers earlier this month.During the gathering in Annapolis, Maryland, Dave Sackett of the Tarrance Group reviewed a recent...

There is a growing sense among political pundits, especially of the establishment class, that only Ted Cruz has a reasonable shot at stopping Donald Trump. Jeb Bush has already achieved terminal velocity, Christie and Kasich have been unable to break the top 3 in New Hampshire, and Fiorina has been demoted from the debate main stage. Rubio, who was their 6th or 7th choice, has yet to achieve the same kind of liftoff that Cruz has, and he doesn’t have an obvious strategic path to victory like Cruz does. When faced with a choice between Trump and Cruz, the establishment...

It isn't hard because the psyches and pschos are relatively minor I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like this quite before. People talk about the establishment being against Reagan in 1980 but that really isn’t the case. Reagan was a two-term California governor. His inner circle was very much tied into the GOP establishment. He’d run for president in 1968 (he carried one state) and 1976. He was known. His opponent was a former member of congress, former CIA director, former UN Ambassador, former Ambassador-equivalent to China, former RNC Chairman George H. W. Bush. Of course, in 1968, 1976,...

As Erick noted recently, the GOP Establishment and their talking heads are eager to frame Ted Cruz as too conservative to win in November.“We’ll take anyone!” the Establishment is saying, “Even Trump over Cruz.”As I wrote the other day, these are the same political pygmies who have put the Republican Party in the state that it is in today. Rudderless, easily rolled by the Obama Administration and more interested in money and power, not principle, this chattering class is terrified of Ted Cruz and what he means to their futures.Eager to undermine Cruz, they have moved from whispering to shouting,...

Two weeks ago I wrote that the GOP establishment fears Ted Cruz more than Donald Trump. What has transpired over the last two weeks has proven that hypothesis. Here’s what I wrote then: Cruz is the larger threat to establishment because, if he wins, they lose all the levers of power. McConnell and his allies would be tossed out of organizations such as the Republican National Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, etc...  If history is any guide, the sitting president of a political party has a large leeway in choosing those in key power positions.  That...

Donald Trump: I was part of the establishment. Let me explain. I was the establishment two months ago. I was like the fair haired boy. I was a giver, a big giver. Once I decided to run all of a sudden I’m sort of semi anti establishment. Now leading in all the polls, they are treating me very well. I’m mean I’m being treated very well.

The big question is, is Donald Trump anti-establishment or is he more likely to save the current system, than to challenge it. If our current crisis that concerns so many is a consequence of a deeply flawed centrally planned economic system, manipulated by the Federal Reserve, a foreign policy of occupation and preemptive war and a systematic attack on our civil liberties here at home, how will Trump be helpful in finding a solution? Is Donald Trump arguing for any significant change in policy or is he advocating only a different management style? What policy does he actually propose that...

It is more than an open secret that the Republican Establishment so hates Ted Cruz that they are more and more openly rooting for Donald Trump to win Iowa. I just got today’s Hotline from National Journal. It is behind a pay wall, but it is worth noting their top story confirms what I have been seeing and hearing. The Establishment thinking is that if Trump beats Cruz in Iowa, they can then beat Trump with Rubio, Bush, or Christie. But that is horse manure and if they were not all incompetent morons they would know it. These guys have...

It is more than an open secret that the Republican Establishment so hates Ted Cruz that they are more and more openly rooting for Donald Trump to win Iowa.I just got today’s Hotline from National Journal. It is behind a pay wall, but it is worth noting their top story confirms what I have been seeing and hearing. Josh Kraushaar writes, It's the $64,000 question for establishment-minded Republicans: Would they rather see Ted Cruz or Donald Trump win the Iowa caucuses, assuming none of the more moderate candidates prevail?In an informal survey of senior GOP strategists, the clear winner was...

I must confess that I'm confused. I still have vivid memories of the tea-party revolution of 2010, when insurgent conservative candidates toppled incumbents and establishment favorites from coast to coast. This was the year of Rand Paul in Kentucky, Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, and Nikki Haley in South Carolina. Perhaps most momentous of all, it was the year of Marco Rubio, who overcame long odds to beat Charlie Crist, a man who's since proven himself to be exactly the kind of soulless politician the tea party exists to oppose. Since his election, Rubio has delivered, becoming one of the...

Fighting against an entrenched Washington D.C. Establishment that refuses to give up the perks and power they feel entitled to and will use any means available to hang onto The similarities between Donald Trump and the Tea Party movement are blazingly obvious. Perhaps that is why the Washington D.C. Establishment and its pundits either cannot make the connection or refuse to acknowledge it all together. It is not as if there is a lack of information out there for the Establishment political pundit to not have stumbled upon and made a connection. Nor should there be a problem with connecting...

The Republican Establishment has become unhinged on its hatred for Donald Trump It is indeed appalling how they spend so much time and energy denouncing Trump and trying to make him look bad. They keep talking about Trump’s rudeness but not a word about how others have insulted him. Just the other day, Jeb Bush called Trump a jerk. For someone at 3% in the polls, he should instead stop insulting the over 30% who choose Trump and re-evaluate his candidacy. It tells me these individuals care more for their elitist positions in DC than for their country and the...

By Wallace Bruschweiler and William Palumbo Over the last several years, the American people have witnessed one perplexing political shenanigan after another - a never-ending story. Instead of standing up for principles, for democracy itself, our elected leaders routinely sell-out the same country to which they swore an oath to protect. The most recent enormous sell-out was the passage of a budget that served only the government, not the country. It began with the election of a new Speaker, whom many hoped would serve the country better than his predecessor. Instead of a political savior, we got yet another total...

Senator Marco Rubio's recent support for an Article V Convention of the States is causing some folks heartburn. Noah Rothman at Commentary calls Rubio's support for a Convention of the States a Pander for the Ages. Rather than taking Rubio at his word and assuming this is a principled stand, Rothman argues that Rubio's support for the Convention of the States is a politically strategic rouse. As a political maneuver, Rubio’s latest is a deft one. Hardened by influential talk show hosts who have spent months inveighing against his support of a 2013 immigration reform bill, Rubio will need to...

Yes, Cruz is the real deal. No need to take my word for it. Just look and listen. It's as Limbaugh says: the left and the establishment right will always tell you who they fear the most.Sure, they hate both Trump and Cruz. The hatred for Trump is understandable, from their standpoint. He makes republicans look bad – he's intolerant and generally causes them embarrassment. But the antipathy for Cruz is born of fear. They fear the end of the government gravy train if he get's elected. They fear that with Cruz at the helm, Americans may just discover they...

Establishment Republicans gave Democrats a generous Christmas gift this year while at the same time stuffing conservatives' stockings with coal in the passage of the omnibus spending bill. These Republicans obviously forgot that it was the hard work of grassroots conservatives that gave them the majority, winning the largest number of Congressional seats since the Civil War during the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections. Conservatives expected a little something in return. Nothing big, they just wanted them to keep their promises to stop (or at least stall) some of President Obama's highly unpopular policies, not continue or increase them. No...