Posted on 04/09/2015 9:33:46 AM PDT by kingattax
When Ted Cruz officially entered the presidential race a few weeks ago, I wrote that the pundit-oddsmakers were undervaluing his prospects for success. As a favorite of the GOPs large conservative base, it seemed clear to me, as I later suggested in one of our podcasts, that if Cruz isnt a Tier 1 candidate, hes no worse than Tier 1A.
Now comes word that, in one week, super PACs backing Cruz have raised $31 million. This vaults him, as the Washington Post says, into the top tier of the money race. Indeed, according to Mark Halperin, there are no known cases in which an operation backing a White House hopeful has collected this much money in less than a week.
I think it also confirms Cruzs status in the first tier of the actual race. Although Cruz appears to have raised plenty of money from wealthy donors, much of his success is down to small-dollar donations, according to the Post. This is the grass-roots speaking.
(Excerpt) Read more at linkis.com ...
Actually, the Cruz campaign collected over $4 million in small donations in the first 2 DAYS, not weeks.
That would work great as a magnetic sign for car/truck doors or a t-shirt...
Brain fart - that should have read "501(c)4", not "504(c)4".
Can anybody please find this poll!!????
The folks at National Review seem to think otherwise though.
It all depends upon how the donations are made to the super-PAC. If the donations are made by an individual or corporation directly to the super-PAC, then the corporation or individual will be identified in the FEC filing; if the donation is made through a 501(c)4 organization, the organization is identified in the FEC filing, but the donors to the organization are not.
I get the impression that the National review doesn’t like Cruz. LOL
It is the latest Quinipiac poll on swing states. Rush talked about it last hour.
They do. But since they can accept donations from corporate entities, which don't have to disclose their sources, their largest donors can remain behind a shell company. Individuals don't.
I am puzzled. Here is the poll that was mentioned. Both CNN and Rush claimed that Cruz came in over Clinton in three swing states.
Read it and get puzzled too.
Don’t be fooled again ( 2008 2012 ) support Ted Cruz, the champion of conservatives.
Anyone who wonders how Cruz will do in debates, has not been paying attention, and has very little knowledge of his background, when the debates start you will be delighted in his performance, no one should be surprised.
IMO...This is not the time to sit and wait, there are rare occasions when putting all your eggs in one basket is prudent, this is such a time, it should be more than obvious to the politically astute Cruz is the man for times such as these.
We don't need a repeat of 2012 where we had 8 to 10 challengers in the primary and one by one they fell like domino's all the money and resources sucked up for naught, with the last man standing was Romney, what's to learn we already know where every potential candidates stands, Cruz posses all the best attributes of the others, plus/plus, we need to choose NOW and stand with the candidate who's primary intentions is to Restore Our Constitutional Free Republic and vows to constitutionally tear down the progressive liberal bureaucratic institutions starting with obamacare and the IRS.
Thanks, that is awesome.
Cruz | CO | IA | VA |
Favorable | 28% | 26% | 30% |
Unfavorable | 34 | 31 | 38 |
Hvn't hrd enough | 36 | 42 | 31 |
REFUSED | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Cruz's challenge is going to be to move the undecideds into "favorable". It's usually the kiss of death to be over 50% unfavorable.
For comparison, here's Rand:
Rand | CO | IA | VA |
Favorable | 36% | 35% | 34% |
Unfavorable | 31 | 29 | 31 |
Hvn't hrd enough | 33 | 35 | 33 |
REFUSED | 1 | 1 | 2 |
This is a registered voter poll, so includes Donks. Still, you can see Cruz has a lot more work to do to get to >50% approval in all three states, and needs to do considerably better than break-even in wooing the undecideds.
The good news for whoever the eventual GOP nominee is, is that Hillary has terrible approval ratings.
CO | IA | VA | |
Favorable | 41% | 45% | 48% |
Unfavorable | 51 | 47 | 45 |
Hvn't hrd enough | 6 | 5 | 4 |
REFUSED | 2 | 2 | 2 |
What is puzzling about the poll? It seems straight forward to me.
Well as far as Free Republic goes, Cruz seems to have the most support here. Of course FR has proven pretty horrible at picking winners. (Even of the more Conservative part of the contest). Hermain Cain, Sen. Thompson, Duncan Hunter and Alan Keyes were big favorites on FR in the past. FR pretty much hated both McCain and Romney (the latter, more) from the start. But, they still one. So even everyone on FR going all in for Cruz from the start probably won't mean much.
Your advice is good advice, but then again supporters of all the other candidates would say "everyone should rally around my guy NOW, so we can go in united and win!!" too.
It still comes down to "what's the compelling argument for / against them.
I think the willowing will be faster this time than in 2008 and 2012. But the process you describe, the last man standing, is still going to take place.
Here is some old-time conventional election geek wisdom that I think is useful:
Three tickets out of Iowa. Two tickets out of New Hampshire.
Cruz seems likely to get one of the Iowa tickets, and a little less likely to get one of the New Hampshire ones. SO then it goes to South Carolina. I can see him doing very well there.
But there are 19 people in Sababto's current list of GOP challengers. Even saying 1/2 of them drop out before Iowa, thats a lot of people running in Iowa, and a lot of people dropping out after Iowa and New Hampshire.
At this point it looks like Jeb, Rand, Cruz, Rubio, Walker and Huckabee have a shot at still being around in South Carolina. The rest seem unlikely. (I maybe discounting Santorum, he won Iowa, so he probably has a shot there to at least get 3rd and stay alive for a bit.)
Cruz posses all the best attributes of the others,
No, not really. Walker has more experience in an executive role, and has a proven record of winning in a Blue / Purple state. Rand has much lower disapproval ratings, he is often described as more likeable. Etc.
That's why we have primaries, after all.
“...This is not the time to sit and wait, there are rare occasions when putting all your eggs in one basket is prudent, this is such a time, it should be more than obvious to the politically astute Cruz is the man for times such as these...”
You are correct. Absolutely. We need to — desperately need to — coalesce around a conservative and Ted Cruz *should* be more than acceptable to most reasonable voters.
But we won’t unite behind Cruz, or any other candidate. Even here on FR where you’d think Cruz would stand out from the rest of the field as a conservative. But no. As usual, we will bicker and get tunnel vision on single-issue arguments, waste time with political peeing contests and making mountains out of mole-hills... until we end up with either Bush or something inconceivably worse. And when it’s all over and done with and we’ve lost to either Clinton, Warren, Bush or Christie (or whatever), *THEN* all the members of the circular firing squad on the right will suddenly come to the conclusion that, “Geeze, how did we end up with this soup-sandwich for a president? Cruz would have been much better. We should have gone all in for Cruz early...”
And I sincerely hope I am completely wrong about this, but I fear I am in the ball park of what’s going to happen.
I am really looking forward to the debates....
Republican voters' search for a nominee has been, all along, a "Waiting for Godot" drama. Santorum was the only candidate competing in Iowa who had not gotten his turn in the sunshine until the cold of winter ...If Iowa hands a win to Cruz and he finishes second in New Hampshire he's the front runner going into South Carolina.Months ago, Iowans chose Michele Bachmann only to discover she was weak on facts and had no chance of winning the contest. Next came Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who flubbed his debates. In their continuing search for Anybody But Romney, Iowa Republicans turned to Herman Cain, but then scandal hit. Next up was Newt Gingrich, who seemed to have everything they wanted. Gingrich did have everything, including -- as a Romney "hit-ad" put it -- "more baggage than the airlines."
Iowa voters then sampled Paul, a man that many decidedly feel is not a conservative, mostly because of his foreign policy. Everyone, including Gingrich, jumped on Paul, accusing him of being not sufficiently worried about a nuclear Iran. As a result, Iowans who want someone with strong conservative credentials fled to Rick Santorum, the only candidate left standing, but one they likely met at an event or two.
I think the process works in his favor.
Iowa's three tickets: Cruz, Walker and Rand.
New Hampshire's two: Jeb and one of those three.
South Carolina will sort the men from the boys, but you'd have to like Cruz's chances there.
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