Free Republic

I have a confession to make: I’m a Democrat and a progressive, and I’m rooting for Ted Cruz to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2016. It’s not because I think he will win or because I agree with anything he stands for. It’s because Cruz represents the best hope of returning sanity to American politics. Cruz is perhaps the quintessential example of Republican politics, circa 2015. He’s uncompromising, ideologically inflexible, and doesn’t appear to be very interested in appealing to non-conservatives. His views are perhaps the most radical and extreme in a political party increasingly defined by rising levels...

I’m tempted to accuse Team Walker of feeding this bit of oppo to MSNBC to take some heat off of their own rolling clusterfark on immigration. But I’m sure author Benjy Sarlin, a smart guy who follows this issue for the network, hit on it himself. (Wouldn’t Walker’s team have leaked it to Fox to maximize Cruz’s embarrassment among conservatives?) To a lefty, the tangle of GOP primary politics on amnesty must be irresistible: Why is Scott Walker taking a beating on the right for supporting legalization when Ted Cruz, Mr. Conservative, also supported legalization in the form of...

Sen. Ted Cruz launched his bid for the Republican presidential nomination this week by promising to "finally, finally, finally secure the borders" and put an end to unauthorized immigration. This will warm the hearts of restrictionists, no doubt. But it should scare Americans who love their pocketbooks and liberties more than they hate undocumented Latino immigrants. Restrictionists accuse many of these immigrants of being welfare queens who come to America illegally and live off taxpayers. Cruz has contributed to the hysteria by proposing bills barring undocumented workers from ever receiving any means-tested benefits, presumably even after they become legal. Accusations...

<>Politico writes that Rand Paul is losing support among key followers. One of the most prominent defectors is Drew Ivers, chairman of Ron Paul’s 2012 Iowa campaign, who says he will not endorse Rand Paul for president. On Tuesday, three members of Iowa’s Ron Paul-aligned Liberty movement — state Sen. Jason Shultz and former Iowa Republican Party central committee members Chad Steenhoek and Joel Kurtinitis — announced the same, adding that they will support Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Ivers, who had dinner with Rand Paul in August, said the Kentucky senator has abandoned many of the stances that made Ivers...

WITH 596 days to go before America’s next presidential election, the first serious candidate has announced that he will run (see article). Ted Cruz is an intelligent man with an inspiring life story. His father fled from Cuba with a few dollars sewn into his underwear and settled in the United States. The young Ted made a name for himself in Texas while still a teenager, giving lectures to Rotary clubs about the constitution. By his early 30s he was arguing cases before the Supreme Court—and winning. At 41, he was elected to the Senate, overcoming long odds in a...

Long before Ted Cruz was a big-name senator and conservative rock star, wowing the crowd at Liberty University in the early days of his presidential bid, he was just another lawyer toiling away in virtual anonymity under George W. Bush. While Cruz’s time in the Senate is best known for fiery speeches and high-profile gestures like his 21-hour filibuster, in his earlier time in Washington he demonstrated a wonkish eye for detail and an eagerness to take on powerful industry groups that he saw as stifling competition. Though his efforts ultimately succeeded on a much smaller scale than he’d initially...

Exclusive: Doug Wead says 1 candidate represents the past, the other the future. So what’s the difference between Republican presidential candidates Rand Paul and Ted Cruz? Ted Cruz is running against Barack Obama. Rand Paul is running against Hillary Clinton. One represents the past. The other represents the future. Both men are U.S. senators running for president in 2016. Rand Paul is from Kentucky, Ted Cruz from Texas. (Rand Paul is expected to announce his candidacy April 9.) Both men are conservatives whose careers were launched during rise of the tea party. Both are born-again Christians. And both signed the...

As Ted Cruz announced his 2016 presidential campaign Monday, BuzzFeed had three reporters scour the records for everything and anything they could find to throw at Cruz—that is, Rafael Cruz, Ted’s father. BuzzFeed reporters Ilan Ben-Meir, Andrew Kaczynski, and Megan Apper just can’t seem to get enough of the Texas senator’s dad. Let’s just skip this bit of actual history, although they felt compelled to at least give it a passing nod: “The story of Rafael Cruz — growing up in Cuba, joining a revolution to overthrow Batista at age 17, jailed and tortured, and fleeing to the United States...

Young America’s Foundation (YAF) will welcome Senator Ted Cruz, Breitbart’s Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow, John Stossel, Katie Pavlich, and hundreds of students to New Hampshire for the first Freedom Conference of 2015. High school and college students will travel to Nashua, New Hampshire, on March 27 and 28 for inspiration, camaraderie, and training on how to take the ideas of individual freedom, free markets, and strong national defense to schools across the country. Students from as far away as California, North Carolina, Florida, and Texas will be attending this event. Many in the Conservative Movement suggest that we need to chase...

Someone had to be first. When it comes to the 2016 presidential campaign, that person is Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas). On March 23, he formally announced that he is running for president. Cruz’s rise to national prominence has been meteoric. He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2012 after never having held statewide elected office in his home state of Texas. If Cruz makes it to the White House, he would match President Barack Obama in taking just four years to go from senator to president. Cruz would also accomplish something unprecedented in American political history: He...

State subsidized (via government subscriptions) Politico needs to use some of those funds to purchase a more highly caffeinated brand of office coffee. If writer James Hohman had been more alert he might not have missed the truly significant information buried in his story which completely undermines the headline: Insiders pump the brakes on Cruz. The buried blockbuster can be found deep into the story after many paragraphs of unrelenting Cruz bashing by a "bipartisan" group: "Nearly two-thirds of Iowa Republican insiders believe Cruz can win the caucuses."So when that "bipartisan" group is narrowed down to just Republicans (why consult Democrats on Republican...

"Wow! Can you believe how Ted Cruz is catching it from both sides in response to his powerful speech announcing his quest to win the White House in 2016? As expected, the Left is doing their typical thing calling Cruz extreme, stupid and crazy. Conservatives are taking shots at Ted Cruz because he has not mastered walking on water. Folks, this is what you get when you have the cojones to take a bold stand for liberty and conservatism. The hysteria, outrage, slings and arrows coming from both sides of the political aisle targeted at Cruz is what a...

ThinkProgress has not one but two articles bashing this tweet from Sen. (and now presidential candidate) Ted Cruz: Federal Govt has no business sticking its nose in education. We need to repeal every word of Common Core! #nhpolitics #MakeDCListen The headlines pretty much sum it up: “Ted Cruz Makes Impassioned Plea For Repeal Of Federal Legislation That Does Not Exist” and “Every Claim In This Ted Cruz Statement Is Completely False.” The second critiques this statement from Cruz’s spokeswoman: “Common Core is a federally created curriculum that the state’s ‘Race to the Top’ grants are tied to. So if the...

The New England Freedom Conference Streaming Agenda  Friday, March 27 7:35 p.m. The Honorable Ted Cruz     Saturday, March 28 9:00 a.m. Katie Pavlich, bestselling author, Townhall columnist, Fox News contributor and YAF alumna 10:00 a.m. Steve Lonegan, director of Monetary Policy, American Principle in Action 11:00 a.m. Dr. Larry Schweikart, bestselling author and professor of history, University of Dayton 12:35 p.m. Robert Spencer, bestselling author and director, Jihad Watch 2:00 p.m. John Stossel, host of Stossel, Fox Business Channel 3:00 p.m. Student Panel: Young People Fighting the Free Speech Battles on CampusRobert Lucido, Amherst CollegeEmily Jashinsky, George Washington...

Rep. Peter D. King (R-N.Y.) is not a fan of Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas senator, newly announced presidential candidate, and fellow Republican. "To me, he's just a guy with a big mouth and no results," he told CNN this week. Well, Cruz supporters aren't much fans of King, a moderate representing Long Island who has long been critical of hard-line conservatives in his own party. And, King said Friday, they have called his congressional office to let him know how they felt, prompting him to issue a statement slamming those Cruz backers as suffering "from severe cases of arrested...

When Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) launched his U.S. Senate bid, he was the preferred choice of a mere 3 percent of Texas Republican primary voters in a field of a half-dozen credible candidates. Chief among his rivals was a powerful three-term lieutenant governor, David Dewhurst, who possessed a net worth of $200 million, enjoyed the near-unanimous support of the Texas GOP establishment and began the 2012 election cycle with a commanding lead in the polls. A year-and-a-half later, Cruz soundly defeated Dewhurst in a primary runoff with 57 percent of the vote and was on his way to the U.S....

Ted Cruz received almost 4.5 million votes in the 2012 Texas Senate election, which he won in a landslide. Millions more Americans, outside Texas, agree with his aggressive brand of conservatism. He has been one of the most influential figures in Congress lately, and this week he became the first major candidate to announce an official 2016 presidential campaign. He also has virtually no chance of winning the Republican nomination, let alone of becoming president. So what are we in the media supposed to do about Mr. Cruz’s candidacy? He is, on the one hand, a major figure in American...

When Ted Cruz officially stepped into the 2016 presidential ring this week the boo-birds attacked immediately. But it wasn't just the liberals of the mainstream media who threw bottles and chairs at the conservative Texan. It was Cruz's fellow Republicans. Is he qualified after only three years in the Senate? Where was he born again? Isn't he too aggressively Christian? Isn't he too conservative to win the general election? Shouldn't we nominate someone more moderate, someone who isn't hated by the MSM and wouldn't scare independents? Unfortunately, we're already heard lots of negative chatter - from Republicans - about...

Shmuley Boteach may have just dropped a major clue in one of the biggest mysteries of the 2016 Republican primary: Who does Sheldon Adelson like? In an email yesterday, Boteach’s charity, This World Values Network, announced that Texas senator and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz would be a guest of honor at its May 28 gala. Also being honored? Sheldon Adelson… and Newt Gingrich. The winner of the Jewish Las Vegas casino mogul’s political favor will profit mightily from his blessing. Adelson spent nearly $100 million in the 2012 election, singlehandedly buoying Gingrich in his doomed primary run and throwing...

The ambush-prone mainstream media (MSM) has difficulty trapping Sen. Ted Cruz, not just because he is mentally agile and verbally adroit. He has truth and authenticity on his side, and it is much harder to trip up someone of that description. Media watchdog Newsbusters shares a litany of examples of MSM hosts doing their best to demean Cruz following the announcement of his presidential campaign. Let's just glance at a few of those. NBC's Matt Lauer, co-host of "Today," was first up to bat for team MSM. He said to Cruz, "Senator, you're a guy who's known for taking on...