Posted on 03/11/2016 2:55:39 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Ted Cruz spent the CNN debate Thursday drawing policy contrasts between himself and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. On ISIS, trade, and immigration, Cruz said Trump speaks to voters' concerns but doesn't have solutions that address the problems America confronts. The personal attacks and shouting that have characterized the previous Republican debates were gone, replaced with somber candidates trying to hit target audiences with messages that have worked in the past. Trump was the politically incorrect straight-talker who wants America to win again. Cruz was the conservative ideologue ready to take on the bipartisan Washington cartel. Marco Rubio was once again the youthful, eloquent voice of a rising generation of conservatives. And John Kasich is the experienced governor who wants to expand the Republican coalition by reviving the tradition of compassionate conservatism.
If 2016 were like previous elections, Rubio and Kasich would be neck and neck in the delegate count and ready to give Hillary Clinton tough competition in the general election. But 2016 is not like previous elections. It features a black swan in the form of Donald Trump, the celebrity real estate mogul who is taking over the Republican party, and whose rise is evidence of a powerful anti-Washington sentiment among GOP voters. So the race isn't between Rubio and Kasich. It's between Trump and his closest rival, Ted Cruz, who is disliked by his Senate colleagues and alienated most of Washington when he shut down the government in the fall of 2013.
I doubt either Trump or Cruz is likely to win in November. But in recent days I have encountered the opinion, especially among liberals, that there is no difference between the two candidates. And this is a ridiculous idea. Cruz would make a much better president than Trump. It shouldn't be hard to see why.
For one thing, Cruz actually knows what he's talking about. If you listened to Trump during the CNN debate, you heard little in the way of policy detail. His answers begin with a few words describing how angry people are and how China is taking our jobs before ending with a demand that we negotiate better deals. Trump is full of bluster, often funny and impolitic. He's a great communicator because he reaches peoples' deepest emotions. But to call him "articulate" would be an exaggeration, and to call him a "wonk" would be delusional. You might not like Cruz's policies or the manner in which he communicates them, but there's no question he has firm convictions, a grasp of detail, and knows how to make an argument.
Then there is the question of the Constitution. Trump never mentions it. But Cruz worships it. He mentions it often in his speeches, knows its contents, is devoted to the memory of the Founders and wants to protect their legacy. I don't know how a President Trump would respond if one of the other coequal branches of government challenged his authority. Indeed, I am somewhat afraid that Trump would ignore or move against that other branch, whether it's Congress or the Court. But I don't have that worry with Cruz. He may be an ideologue, but he's an ideological constitutionalist. Trump is neither an ideologue nor a constitutionalist. His only principle is winning. And he's not talking about you winning. He's talking about Trump winning. That's all that matters to him.
The president is not only our head of government. He's also the head of state. He represents America. And I truly don't understand how one could think Donald Trump would be a better representative of America than Ted Cruz. Trump is riveting, entertaining, even charismatic. But he curses, he offends, he disturbs, he confronts, he bends and twists and pushes reality until it suits his needs. Having him as president would be like living on a rollercoaster. You wouldn't know whether you are up or down, and you are likely to wake up nauseous.
Cruz is very conservative, a Bible-believing Christian who is fiercely pro-market and hawkish (if not as interventionist as other Republicans). That might upset secular liberals worldwide. But would Cruz be as erratic, would he be as explosive, would he be as unsettling as Trump? I doubt it. The man idolizes Ronald Reagan. Well, we survived, indeed flourished under, one Reagan presidency. Not a bad model for our next president to have.
Who does Trump idolize? Himself. And his neutral and sometimes flattering attitude toward authoritarian governments ought to make you think twice about seeing him in the Oval Office.
The Oval Office seems very far away right now. It's unlikely either Trump or Cruz will be elected president. But nominating Trump would change the Republican Party in a way nominating Cruz would not. Trump overthrows the apple cart. He's already breaking one weak institution--the GOP--and there's no telling what other weak institutions he could break if elected to high office. For reasons of policy, presentation, and character, there is only remaining choice in this GOP primary. It is Ted Cruz.
Yeah because “Reigniting the Promise of America” is such an intellectually serious detailed specific campaing promise in comparison to all the other ones./s
This is where Team Cruz fails. You so busy making up these silly attack lines, you never stop to think how foolish they make your campaign look to people not all ready in the Cruz choir loft.
Once again, Ted Cruz has executive branch experience. If Trump runs the country like he has run his business we’ll all have a Trump tower to live in. Legislators don’t make good presidents. Obama is a good example. Another one term senator.
Enforcing the law and following the constitution won’t work? Not with the corruption in DC and not with the corrupt [morally] population. SC and other judicial appointments are Cruzial. The FBI and CIA know how to cover their tracks so cleaning the grime will be hard.
I don’t see how DT thinks he will get things done either, so it comes to the people and they are deaf and blind.
Two questions to ponder first ;
Who is better to defeat the democrat candidate?
And
Who can make a better nation?
It is still his own money, he has loaned his campaign his own money!!! If Trump decides he need funding WE will fund him not BIG DONORS!!! trump has PENTY of assets he can liquidate if need be!!! For me I can NOT support Cruz it s ALL about the money and the border!!!
Overseas governments and industries decided years ago that it would be cheaper to buy off American politicians and get free access to our markets than to trim their costs to the bone so they could compete here on the same level. Their governments knew that our manufacturing would be forced to move to even compete.
You are correct. Our free traitors sold us out.
How do you get a US company to build here to produce a product that is no longer produced here? You can't precisely because it can never be done here as cheaply as it can is say China or Taiwan or India? The cost to the consumer would triple or worse.
If Trump's solution is to get more foreign companies to build here then sure jobs will be had but the profits are for the home country. I for one do not want to see more Asian companies build here, especially not the Chinese.
Yup. It’s all about money.
Does not matter Cruz is not qualified. No matter how great he would be his loyalties were divided at birth. He is not a natural born citizen therefore is disqualified from ever being president.
Now if your goal is to drive the final nail in the natural born clause and further errode our constitution.......
So how do you triple the cost of something if labor on average is around 8% of the retail cost of a manufactured good? For example union labor is the most expensive by far. Well for the average union made car the cost of labor is 8%. So we are reducing costs per unit by at most 8%.
Your triple the cost hyperbolic talk is BS. Like most Free Traitor™ you spew out baseless "facts" like brainwashed little fascist children that need to be spanked.
Ok - so you add some jobs but the profit base is not here, it's in the home country. And politically speaking, after you deploy the tariff why would you think a Taiwan or Korea would give the green light to take jobs out of their country and move them to the US? If you impose a tariff and start a trade war why would Seoul agree to lose a factory there to build in say Tennessee simply to sell a few more TVs?
I see where you are going but it's not that simple. Honda/Nissan/BMW for example are here because they were getting killed on the foreign exchange translation of shipping into here. Now they can do everything in USD base and keep it here if it make sense.......but, they can also take the profit home if the USD makes it right.
But to have a foreign company build here post a tariff I think is near impossible - both economically and politically.
I see - economic principles are just not your bag.
Good luck going forward.
Hey, while I am not a Catholic, the state of each of the 7 churches is interesting to me. I was reading a thread and this is so apropos...
“If I were Satan, I would gently and silently facilitate the slide down the slippery slope toward the acceptance and even the denial of sin, and at the same time I would make to look ridiculous or hypocritical and vilify, in a covert way, the few who hold to the true teachings of the Catholic Church, the uncomfortable Truth which truly “sets us free” (Jn 8:32). If I were Satan, the true Catholics should be labeled as ridged and old-fashioned, insensitive, lacking in compassion, divisive, judgmental, moralists, and above all lacking in mercy in this Year of Mercy! This is no new strategy, but it works, especially when, by now, the great majority in the Catholic Church have allowed themselves to slide into the easy and gratifying way of relativism. “
Have we truly arrived to a SCHISM?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3407836/posts
“the RATS will not ignore the nbc issue in the general election, if Cruz is the nominee!”
You’re right. We can bet the DNC has all the paperwork prepared to pull it out on Day One of the General if Cruz is the nominee. We think the country and party are in disarray now... just wait. It’ll be mass chaos 2/47.
Where did you get that stat? Are they "Official People's Republic Numbers"? Are you saying that Chinese families of child producing age have an average of 4-5 kids because that's BS and you know it. If "One Child" wasn't causing the population to implode then why did China relax it recently?
Words are not deeds. Unfortunately, a look at the (Reagan) record leads to the question: With free traders like this, who needs protectionists?
Consider that the administration has done the following:
— Forced Japan to accept restraints on auto exports. The agreement set total Japanese auto exports at 1.68 million vehicles in 1981-82, 8 percent below 1980 exports. Two years later the level was permitted to rise to 1.85 million.(33) Clifford Winston of the Brookings Institution found that the import limits have actually cost jobs in the U.S. auto industry by making it possible for the sheltered American automakers to raise prices and limit production. In 1984, Winston writes in Blind Intersection? Policy and the Automobile Industry, 32,000 jobs were lost, U.S. production fell by 300,000 units, and profits for U.S. firms increased $8.9 billion. The quotas have also made the Japanese firms potentially more formidable rivals because they have begun building assembly plants in the United States.(34) They also shifted production to larger cars, introducing to American firms competition they did not have before the quotas were created. In 1984, it was estimated that higher prices for domestic and imported cars cost consumers $2.2 billion a year.(35) At the height of the dollar’s exchange rate with the yen in 1984-85, the quotas were costing American consumers the equivalent of $11 billion a year.(36)
— Tightened up considerably the quotas on imported sugar. Imports fell from an annual average of 4.85 million tons in 1979-81 to an annual average of 2.86 million tons in 1982-86. Not only did this continued practice force Americans to spend more than other consumers for sugar, but it created hardships for Latin American countries and the Philippines, which depend on sugar exports for economic development. The quota program undermined President Reagan’s Caribbean Basin Initiative and intensified the international debt crisis.(37)
— Negotiated to increase restrictiveness of the Multifiber Arrangement and extended restrictions to previously unrestricted textiles. The administration unilaterally changed the rule of origin in order to restrict textile and apparel imports further and imposed a special ceiling on textiles from the People’s Republic of China.(38) Finally, it pressured Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea, the largest exporters of textiles and apparel to the United States, into highly restrictive bilateral agreements. All told, textile and apparel restrictions cost Americans more than $20 billion a year.(39) The Reagan administration has stated several times that textile and apparel imports should grow no faster than the domestic market.(40)
— Required 18 countries—including Brazil, Spain, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Finland, and Australia, as well as the European Community—to accept “voluntary restraint agreements” to reduce steel imports, guaranteeing domestic producers a share of the American market. When 3 countries not included in the 18—Canada, Sweden, and Taiwan— increased steel exports to the United States, the administration demanded talks to check the increase. The administration also imposed tariffs and quotas on specialty steel. These policies, with their resulting shortages, have severely squeezed American steel-using firms, making them less competitive in world markets and eliminating more than 52,000 jobs.(41)
— Imposed a five-year duty, beginning at 45 percent, on Japanese motorcycles for the benefit of Harley Davidson, which admitted that superior Japanese management was the cause of its problems.(42)
— Raised tariffs on Canadian lumber and cedar shingles.
— Forced the Japanese into an agreement to control the price of computer memory-chip exports and increase Japanese purchases of American-made chips. When the agreement was allegedly broken, the administration imposed a 100 percent tariff on $300 million worth of electronics goods. This episode teaches a classic lesson in how protectionism comes back to haunt a country’s producers. The quotas established as a result of the agreement have created a severe shortage of memory chips and higher prices for American computer makers, putting them at a disadvantage with foreign competitors. Only two American firms are still making these chips, accounting for a small percentage of the world market.(43)
— Removed Third World countries from the duty-free import program for developing nations on several occasions.
— Pressed Japan to force its automakers to buy more American-made parts.(44)
— Demanded that Taiwan, West Germany, Japan, and Switzerland restrain their exports of machine tools, with some market shares rolled back to 1981 levels. Other countries were warned not to increase their shares of the U.S. market.
— Accused the Japanese of dumping roller bearings, because the price did not rise to cover a fall in the value of the yen. The U.S. Customs Service was ordered to collect duties equal to the so-called dumping margins.(45)
— Accused the Japanese of dumping forklift trucks and color picture tubes.(46)
— Failed to ask Congress to end the ban on the export of Alaskan oil and of timber cut from federal lands, a measure that could substantially increase U.S. exports to Japan.
— Redefined “dumping” in order “to make it easier to bring charges of unfair trade practices against certain competitors.”(47)
— Beefed up the Export-Import Bank, an institution dedicated to promoting the exports of a handful of large companies at the expense of everyone else.(48)
— Extended quotas on imported clothespins.
People who are having a stroke make more sense than that.
Where did you get the triple idea? Made it up out of whole cloth? Why not say it would be a thousand million times more expense if Made in the USA.
Perhaps you can tell me what role Glenn Beck will play in a Cruz WH? Now that he is linked with Cruz, Cruz supporters don’t think he’s as crazy as a sh!thouse rat like they use to. We can find hypocrisy in the strangest places.
” In other words, “dammit people, we need to turn the heat down and go back to slow boiling you frogs! Too many of you are starting to jump out of the pot.”
Good imagery. Millions of frogs jumping out of the NWO pot. George HW Bush and Soros are swimming with frogs in their cabanas.
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