Posted on 08/17/2015 9:00:16 AM PDT by wolfman23601
Sen. Ted Cruz was overshadowed during much of the first GOP debate, but he finished strong. And this might turn out to be a microcosm of his larger campaign plan.
True, Donald Trump is sucking up everyone’s oxygen. And, yes, logic would dictate that — because he occupies the same populist space as Cruz — Trump would take a disproportionate number of votes from the Texas conservative. But, instead, Cruz is polling well — in third place, behind Trump and Ben Carson, according to a new Fox News poll.
And if Trump gets out of the race (for now, that’s a big if ), it’s possible that Cruz could inherit at least some of Trump’s supporters.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Of course, the ebbs and flows of the election cycle. However, as long as Trump doesn't backtrack on the immigration issues(s), stays consistent on the one point, I think he will remain high in the polls. This really is the biggest issue Americans have latched onto and agreed upon. This, in my opinion, is what has Trump separated himself from the others with. Trump would be a non candidate if the GOP would have just done their jobs. All the Republicans had to do is what they were MANDATED to do back last November with their historic win. STOP Obama, get a handle on the horde overrunning our southern border. They have not done a damn thing. Enter Trump. It is no secret.
I completely understand DT’s strong support in the polls right now.
I get it.
What troubles me so much about Trump are his very significant past political donations to the Dems and his closeness to the Clintons.
That should give everyone pause for concern. IMHO.
I don’t trust Trump. His positions on the issues have been all over the map.
I would love to see Cruz offer to debate Bernie Sanders and the other Democrat candidates since Hillary refuses to debate them. Debate them each one on one.
Hillary would hate it.
I agree with grania. Trump is not going to quit this race.
Your examples from 2012 aren’t applicable to this race.
One by one:
Rick Perry: he was big in the polls before anyone knew him, just because he was governor of Texas. As soon as he opened his mouth in the debates he was finished.
My conclusion: no parallel to Trump.
Newt Gingrich: although an excellent debater and speaker, and able to slap down the debate moderators, he really never had much of a platform outside the debates. Also, Gingrich’s rise came because he was seen as a last-chance-to-stop-Romney, and didn’t rise strong on his own merits from the beginning.
My conclusion: although some similarities, not much of a parallel to Trump.
Herman Cain: although the obvious similarity here is a business background, Cain came out of nowhere and was almost universally unknown before his rise and completely unvetted as a public personality. Trump is well-known to the American public and has been for decades.
My conclusion: though neither held previous office, I still see no parallel here.
So yes, polls can change, obviously. The race can have dramatic shifts and turns, of course. But to look for parallels between 2016 and 2012 is to make the mistake generals often make: fighting the last war.
Cruz challenged Obama to debate the Iran nuke deal and even offered to debate John Kerry if Obama couldn’t make it.
Errr, 5 months, 13 days, 11 hours, 50 minutes but who is counting?
Your analysis is as accurate as your ability to tell time.
Who's the true conservative? I don't know. I do know (and I'm one of the first small donations to the Cruz campaign) that Cruz's call for massive increases in H1B Visas is a real bad idea and that he got played very badly on that trade deal, in spite of warnings. Having Cruz in the Senate, alongside Jeff Sessions, and the small handful of conservatives there, is what the nation needs for President Trump to straighten out that mess.
So let's save our money and time and instead spend it on real constitutional conservatives getting to DC, to serve alongside those already there. I'd love to see Senator Cruz replace Mitch McConnell as Majority Leader.
So as someone who identifies himself more with the economic and national security conservatives, I see clearly now that my faction is a small one. The Club for Growth small government platform, though I agree with it, is a sure loser in the year 2016. So in the end, if the GOP wants to win, their horse is Trump. Not cheer leading, just the cold hard facts. All that small government talk never reverberated beyond the think tanks. It never entered the halls of the Knights of Columbus. And if it did, they would want nothing to do with it. They just want a country as it was under the consensus of the New Deal.
Funny you talk about Trump’s ceiling, which by the way keeps going up. How about Jeb’s ceiling, with ‘pubs who would never vote for him because of Terri Schiavo? What’s my point? First priority should be getting Jeb out of the show, not bringing up negatives about Trump.
We agree.
A lot could happen.
Polls fluctuate.
The time period between now and the IA caucuses is an eternity in the political world. Much can happen between now and then.
It is possible DT could maintain or even increase his lead in the polls. It is also possible that he could be peaking too early.
Jeb! is a non-starter. Trump’s numbers do not “keep going up”. They have been stuck in the same place for a month. In fact, they have gone down a little from before the debate where some polls had him in the 30s.
Trump by any definition is not a true conservative, however that may be why he will win in the end. What we are finding out that the down the line conservatives are small in number. It is the cultural conservatives who are probably the largest faction in the country, and they will carry Trump over the finish line. They do not care about small or big government. They just want to feel good about the country, without taking any hair cuts on entitlements. This faction by far is the largest in the country, bar none. It even crosses party lines. You will hear, and believe it, many two time Obama voters voting for Trump. It is Trump’s race to lose, bar none.
I believe that if Trump falls it will because of a mistake he makes.
His unfavorables have been dropping week by week—and he’s bringing in lots of disaffected voters from both parties, as well as from among the unaffiliated.
I like Cruz, but I’m more confident in Trump’s optimism, charm, and correct angling for a big tent than am I in the more purist Cruz winning it all.
Better to hope for Cruz as veep—and then for him to rise to the presidency from there.
Still, if Trump falters, Cruz is my guy.
‘scuze my lack of peer-reviewed encyclopedic completeness of the subject. The 2016 Republican National Convention will convene in Cleveland, Ohio on July 18-21, 2016. Eleven months, close enough for a colloquial “a year” in a short comment in a casual forum with strangers.
Cruz and Trump DID have a publicly-noted but privately-held meeting just as the hair was starting to take off. Struck me as a “friendly competitors” strategy meeting, which undoubtedly addressed the fact Trump has run before to no avail, seems to have a ceiling despite his wide popularity, and wants to influence the ultimate success & choice of nominee. Cruz seems the most likely heir of Trump’s voters.
Oh!
Absolutely!
We agree 100% on this.
The more the MSM and the GOPe attack DT, the further he rises in the polls. No doubt about that.
If DT does implode it will be something he says or does.
Agree 100%.
And it will probably happen IMHO.
He has no discipline.
He’s winging it.
Having a fun run ride right now to be sure.
But how long can it last?
I don’t know about implode, but I think Trump’s popularity will fade. But, I gotta say, his latest comments have me looking at him again.
I get a little impatient that Cruz doesn’t seem to be getting much traction right now, but it may be best. If he peaks too soon, he may become a has-been.
That they have. I'm still not 100 percent certain he's really "in it". Time will tell, I just know WHY he's ahead..it's the immigration issue. If the Republicans would have done something by now, instead of caving to Obama on every issue and largely agreeing with the open door policies, thus the feeling there is no difference between Dems and the GOP, Trump would already be a footnote.
I see 2 problems with your high confidence in Trump tripping himself up:
1. It can’t be a slip of the tongue or a “debate mistake” like Perry in 2012 or Ford in 1976. Trump is simply too good at recovering from mistakes like that and just blowing past them. It would have to be a mistake on a more strategic level, such as picking a very bad policy decision and sticking to that decision. Even so, Trump has this amazing “weebles wobble but don’t fall down” characteristic that might even take him beyond strategic errors. Anyway, it’s going to have to be a really, really bad mistake, and probably one that he maintains over a significant time period.
2. You are fooling yourself if you think he is only “winging it”. Yes, there is some “winging it”, especially in his public appearances. But there is also a lot of behind-the-scenes planning. Trump didn’t build financial empires on the fly. And neither is this campaign on the fly.
Agree with you.
Illegal immigration issue is providing the fuel for DT’s poll numbers right now.
No doubt about it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.