We had the chance, and we blew it.

FreeRepublic ^ | 2/19/2016 | Washi

[Washi]

It's appearing obvious that Trump will win South Carolina, and logic would tend to indicate that that makes him the odds-on favorite to win the Republican nomination (baring any GOPe dirty tricks at the convention).

While I will gladly vote for Trump over Clinton or Sanders, I'm still disheartened.

Ever since the last day of Reagan's administration, America has been in need of conservative leadership.

GHW Bush's squishiness gave us Clinton.

GW Bush barely won election. I'm glad he was in office after 9/11 instead of Gore, but he loaded us up with tons of debt and a lot of government growth. He also gave us Obama.

McCain was a squish and got his ass handed to him in Obama's first term.

Romney was a squish and got his ass handed to him in Obama's second term. Even Obama was surprised he won that one after the destruction he wrought in his first term.

Now, our chance has come.

On the democrat side, we have a nasty, entitled, corrupt, untrustworthy, unlikable, old hag and a grungy, mooching, old, socialist running for office.

On the republican side, we have a solidly conservative, well spoken, highly informed candidate that isn't afraid to stand up to the GOPe and fight for conservative causes. It's what we ALL have been waiting for.

We've ALL thought that we could win the presidency and right the wrongs of the past few decades of creeping socialism if we would just put a true conservative up as our nominee in the general.

Well, this is our chance. But, we're about to piss it away.

I think I understand the appeal of Trump. People are pissed and Trump has tapped into that. But this is a time for thinking, not feeling. Trump is a demagogue. People want to be on "Team Trump" because he's loud, proud, and unapologetic. But, Trump is also practicing a scorched Earth campaign of character assassination against Cruz in order to win the nomination for himself, and his whipped up supporters are dog-piling on anyone who dares to point out the emperor's lack of clothes.

Two years from now, when we discover that all of the red flags and warnings being blared by Trump's past positions and statements really are an accurate representation of Trump, and we find that "campaign" Trump was just that, we will kick ourselves when we realize that we had our chance, perhaps our last, to nominate the true conservative we had all been waiting for, and we screwed it up.

Turning a blind eye to Trump's liberal leanings just because he says the things we want to hear, and helps us express our dissatisfaction with the status-quo, doesn't make his leanings any less liberal.

We've said that electing a conservative could set us back on the right track.

We have, right now, a chance that we won't have again for a very, very long time. A chance to prove we were right.

But we're about to blow it.

[MaxFlint]

Kasich beats her by 7.4.

Are you suggesting we support Kasich?

I don't base my claim that Trump is the best candidate to beat Hillary on polling. Polling doesn't predict how the candidates will look when they start engaging in political battle. I look at Hillary and all I see is weakness. She's old, tired, mean, ugly and her voice is nails on a chalkboard.

Hillary is so bad she's having trouble beating Sanders! The only way she wins against a Republican is if they're too chickens*** to hit back when she starts kicking them below the belt. Trump has already neutralized the "woman card" with his calling out of Bill the rapist. You think nice guy Cruz has the guts to go there? Not a chance. Rubio? That boy will be ground up and spit out by the Clinton machine.

Only a real man can take on the establishment and win. Today that's Trump. Cruz is young. Maybe in eight years he'll be all grown up.

[BlueNgold]

Why then, did Ted apologize?
On national TV no less...

[crusher2013]

Ending cheap labor policies: Illegal immigration, H1-B’s, Unfair Trade Treaties.

Not getting us involved in another stupid ME war. Notice all the major Republican candidates are for imposing a no-fly zone in Syria. Against Russia.

Fighting/Speaking up against Political Correctness.

Pretty much covers it. It’s also why none of the other Candidates have much appeal to many people.

[central_va]

Trump has over 1000 H1's on his payroll.

If A Trump owned subsidiary hired H-1B visa holders then Trump needs to handle that. Cruz proposed a 500% increase in H-1Bs that is total BS.

I was laid off in the late 90's and my whole department was replaced by H-1b's so I have felt the pains of gloBULLism and anti American corporate greed personally. The Zuckerburgs and Gates's of the world complain about phony labor shortages from one of their vacation villas. F them

Go Trump, go!

[luvbach1]

In your post #37, a very realistic view of Trump along with good reasons to take a chance on him.

[MaxFlint]

What would Jesus say about a man who publishes books with passages where he gloats about engaging in sex with married women while he is also married?

"Stop doing that."

Since Trump has been married for a decade presumably he has. Stopped that is. If he's still at it I guess we'll know in August.

[Just mythoughts]

What would Jesus say about a man who publishes books with passages where he gloats about engaging in sex with married women while he is also married? Is your moral outrage selective based upon the target of your outrage?

IF Trump starts wearing the 'Jesus sent me costume' getting ready for the rapture religion, then he would be following in Cruz's line of work. Strange thing about Trump, he told on himself... And his sins are between him, and his ex-wives and God. What sins has Cruz committed? And where is his public confession?

Thus far Trump is not playing the Jesus sent me card... the instant he does I will respond in kind.

[cherry]

you're in my boat....but I believe "we" blew it last presidential election....

we actually had people vote for bammy who claimed they were patriots, or conservatives, or Christian...

it was the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party and many people, including freepers, BLEW IT big time...

for the record,I'll vote for Trump but I won't be excited about it...he's a liberal rat in rino clothing.

[nathanbedford]

It is quite clear why Ted Cruz "apologized" not for any deception committed by Ted Cruz himself but for a "mistake" done by his staff. That "mistake" consisted of a failure to send out a follow-up statement from the Carson campaign that he was indeed staying in the race. Yet CNN was broadcasting no such thing only tweeting and it is not clear the state of knowledge or the breath of knowledge in the Cruz campaign as a result of CNN's subsequent tweets which did not comply with what it was broadcasting.

Here is the apology, which does not use the word because it was not warranted:

"Last night when our political team saw the CNN post saying that Dr. Carson was not carrying on to New Hampshire and South Carolina, our campaign updated grassroots leaders just as we would with any breaking news story," Cruz said in a statement first shared with CNN. "That's fair game. What the team then should have done was send around the follow-up statement from the Carson campaign clarifying that he was indeed staying in the race when that came out."

The original Cruz campaign statement was perfectly true:

"Breaking News. The press is reporting that Dr. Ben Carson is taking time off from the campaign trail after Iowa and making a big announcement next week," the email read. "Please inform any Carson caucus goers of this news and urge them to caucus for Ted Cruz." Perfectly true, perfectly fair, perfectly moral, perfectly Christian.

What is not true, not fair, immoral is Donald Trump's assertion of lies on the part of Ted Cruz personally or even on the part of the Ted Cruz campaign.

[Windflier]

That article is a blistering lightning bolt of truth, and yes, it was written by Bill Bennett.

I found it posted here, with attribution:

What I See Happening In a Trump Presidency

[Fai Mao]

If you can’t see any difference between Trump and PIPS or Bernie you are fool.

I am sorry to be so blunt but it is true

[nopardons]

Yes, lets look at this WITHOUT any emotion and just look at the facts.

The facts are that Cruz looked GREAT on paper, when he ran for the Senate. We were all impressed by him, but WHAT did we REALLY know about him back then?

We didn't know that he was born in Canada.

We didn't know that he couldn't think on his feet.

We didn't know that he had lousy judgement when it came to people.

We didn't know that he was malleable, that he would vote for something and then turn around and lie about WHY he did and get someone else to also lie for him.

None of us knew that he and his father have some weirdo religious beliefs.

We didn't know how much he could or would lie, nor that he wasn't adverse to engaging in very dirty politics.

Who knew or even guessed at HOW very unappealing Cruz would be to so many different groups of people? We didn't; that's for sure and it isn't that he's a "conservative" ( whatever that means now, in 2016! ), but because he doesn't connect well with many.

We had been told, repeatedly, what a "great debater" and how "brilliant" he is. He's neither.

And the above facts are but part of his problems; not the total sum of them.

[period end of story]

We have now gotten to the point with Trump supporters that we should oppose Ted Cruz because he is a believing Christians but we should support Donald Trump because he is a lying, hypocritical Christian.

Well, that's your opinion, which is fine.

The Christian angle is only part of the whole picture, and not a big part.

[INVAR]

Not much difference in the blind zealotry for Trump that there was for Obama.

Both promise Hope and change, but the record is going to show that this people surrendered their Republic to a dictatorship/Monarchy willingly, as long as their ideologue was king.

In any event, kiss liberty goodbye. The people of this country no longer stand on a common foundation and cannot even agree what freedom is, much less where it comes from.

[Outlaw76]

Being an IT worker, I definitely understand your anger.
Having been laid off twice, I share your pain.

Until Trump deals with it, please don’t buy the hype.

I believe Cruz can, and to some extent has been persuaded that H1’s need to be brought under control.

[Kickass Conservative]

I’ve been kidding about all the recent Vanities for a few days.

Please don’t take it personally.

I like to think that “most” of my Comments here are an attempt to lighten things up a bit.

My Apologies if you were offended.

[nopardons]

Fantasy fiction, especially OLD, poorly written fantasy fiction is NOT the REAL WORLD!

I suggest that you read FACTUAL American political history, as well as bios of the FFs !

[matthew fuller]

"They’ve never done anything constructive or proactive for this country."

Cruz has, for the Second Amendment.

[grey_whiskers]

...he growls "I'll do EXACTLY LIKE I SAID I'LL DO"

We get that same ad here in Texas. That last sentence grates on my nerves every time I hear it. It's about as genuine as a three dollar bill. Completely inauthentic.

I hear that ad in Minneapolis on the same radio station which carries Rush Limbaugh.

I take it to mean that he will engage in Hillary-and-Bill like parsing of every single last *syllable* and *inflection* to weasel out.

How does a guy who went to Princeton and Harvard and was acclaimed as a world-class genius (*), manage to "forget" to disclose a loan from his IRA to his campaign, and manage to "forget" that he is a Cuban born in Canada, for purposes of citizenship...?

And his eyelashes keep setting off the lower range of my gaydar detector.

I like what he says: but the "humblebrag" biopics which explain the heavily data-driven campaign funded by the hedge-fund billionaire, make me feel as though I've been played. He's very quick with the "right' conservative answer, but it feels a little too...pat, or assembly-line built. The delivery is not robotic as with Rubio, but it is as though he NEVER allows himself to vary at all in the exact encapsulation of the message. Trump, you can tell ("Two Corinthians") hasn't memorized the Christianese, and so he comes across as more "message: I care" except that it looks like a sincere effort, not at all patronizing...

That's it. Cruz looks and sounds patronizing, even when he's being a slime bag (hiring that Roe dirty tricks guy, growling "EXACTLY what I said," etc.) (*) actually, he'd be at the top of the 2nd rank of Freepers, only more insufferable.

[nopardons]

Yes Ted’s voice is HORRIBLE, inauthentic at times, and a real put-off to many !