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Opinion: What if candidate Cruz catches on?
The Pocono Record ^ | March 28, 2015 | Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift

Posted on 03/28/2015 5:12:12 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

The voters are just getting to know the candidates running for president on the Republican side, and the months ahead will allow plenty of time to weigh their credentials and assess how they perform under pressure on the campaign trail. It will be a grueling experience for those who accept the challenge, and whoever emerges in the spring of 2016 joins the battle again in the fall against the Democratic standard-bearer.

As the first official entry into what promises to be a crowded field, Texas Senator Ted Cruz got quite a ride from the media for his announcement this week. He and his wife appeared with Matt Lauer on the “Today” show, and he was the subject of numerous profiles attempting to divine what he is all about, his motivations, and whether he is presidential material.

The early line on Cruz is that while he’s undeniably smart, even brilliant, that he has charted such a narrow path for himself on the far right of his party that he could not reach out to the rest of America should he manage to win the nomination. At Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA, founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell, Cruz told a packed auditorium of students to “Imagine” a presidency where every word of Obamacare is repealed, and where the IRS is abolished – a fantasy presidency where everything on the tea party’s wish list comes true.

It will take a whole lot of imagining to believe that Cruz could make these things come true even if he were king, let alone president. Yet he might just hit upon a theme that could catch on, that could make him the leader of the angriest wing of the GOP, the folks who cheer him for forcing the government to shut down and want him to do it again. Never mind the cost to the country, and the workers who were displaced, the shutdown put Ted Cruz in the spotlight.

We’d all like to file our taxes by postcard, but most of us realize how impractical that would be, and that it couldn’t happen unless the tax code were completely overhauled. Still, it’s the kind of idea that Cruz specializes in — totally unachievable, but sounds good.

That’s why he’s made for the tea party. He can take its obsession with a balanced budget, add a touch of sophistication, and before you know it, he’s got a proposal and a presidential platform. There’s a word for that, it’s called demagoguery, and in today’s fast-paced media environment, it could catch on, at least for a while, until the race gets serious.

That’s the bad news, but the good news is that the scrutiny will get more intense once we get past the fun and games stage of the presidential contest. That’s when it will take more than outsized ambition and ego to reach the finals of this fierce competition.

The great jurist, Oliver Wendell Holmes, said Franklin Roosevelt, who steered the country through the Depression and World War II, had a second-rate intellect but a first-rate temperament.

By that yardstick, Cruz has a ways to go. He has the intellect, but he is among the least liked members of the Senate.

Among the rest of the Republican field, there are contenders whose smarts don’t immediately jump out, and there are problematic personalities. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry is the most congenial of the candidates, and not the smartest if we count his “oops” moment in the 2008 debates. Jeb Bush was always considered the smartest of the Bush brothers, but we don’t know that much yet about his temperament. That’s what the campaign trail is for, and so the months ahead will be enlightening for the voters and for the candidates too.


TOPICS: Texas; Campaign News; Issues; Parties
KEYWORDS: 2016election; bush; defundnpr; defundpbs; douglascohn; eleanorclift; election2016; mclaughlingroup; rickperry; taxes; tedcruz; texas
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Yeah, I didn't know she was still alive, either.
1 posted on 03/28/2015 5:12:12 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

If a Cardboard cutout can win VOTE FOR IT


2 posted on 03/28/2015 5:14:00 PM PDT by molson209 (Blank)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

She made “The McLaughlin Group” hard to watch.


3 posted on 03/28/2015 5:16:17 PM PDT by freedom6178
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Harry Reid ran the Senate. How do these idiots still get away with trying to blame the so-called shutdown on a junior senator of the minority party?


4 posted on 03/28/2015 5:16:48 PM PDT by GeronL
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
he is among the least liked members of the Senate.

What does that have to do with HIS temperament? It says a lot about the Power Elite of the establishment of both parties -- the folks who make We The People sick. Of course the establishment don't like him. They know he's real.

5 posted on 03/28/2015 5:18:20 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy ("Victim" -- some people eagerly take on the label because of the many advantages that come with it.)
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To: molson209

Not if its not conservative


6 posted on 03/28/2015 5:18:35 PM PDT by GeronL
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

SOS.


7 posted on 03/28/2015 5:18:51 PM PDT by EagleUSA (Liberalism removes the significance of everything.)
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To: molson209
If a Cardboard cutout can win VOTE FOR IT

A Cardboard cutout that everyone thought could win ran in 2012. That didn't work out too well.

8 posted on 03/28/2015 5:19:42 PM PDT by COBOL2Java ("God save America" - we are at the dawn of a new dark age)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

You left out the gag alert.


9 posted on 03/28/2015 5:22:46 PM PDT by unixfox (Abolish Slavery, Repeal the 16th Amendment)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Just found out she writes for The Daily Beast, or at least she did in late 2014. What a piece of trash that rag is.


10 posted on 03/28/2015 5:24:39 PM PDT by Robert DeLong (u)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
He has the intellect, but he is among the least liked members of the Senate.

So, to be president one apparently has to be liked by the Senate.

11 posted on 03/28/2015 5:25:14 PM PDT by Timber Rattler (Just say NO! to RINOS and the GOP-E)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
...totally unachievable, but sounds good.

It will be difficult because powerful special interests make a lot of money dealing with the gargantuan tax code. Getting rid of the behemoth won't be easy, but it's not impossible, and it will take time. That's why President Cruz needs to start on it as soon as he is inaugurated.

12 posted on 03/28/2015 5:25:17 PM PDT by Fresh Wind (Falcon 105)
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To: ClearCase_guy
he is among the least liked members of the Senate.

Is this a fact? Is there any data to back up this claim because if not it goes beyond irresponsible journalism straight to propaganda.

13 posted on 03/28/2015 5:26:12 PM PDT by Kenny (,)
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To: unixfox

Nope. Here it is, right here: Eleanor Clift.


14 posted on 03/28/2015 5:27:11 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You can help: https://www.tedcruz.org/donate/)
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To: Timber Rattler

but he is among the least liked members of the Senate.


That’s why we like him, most of the Senate are reprehensible.


15 posted on 03/28/2015 5:31:09 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
The EXEMPT Senate, hated by Americans, for their
generation of two-tier system with THEM above the Law,
and for their complicity with CONTINUOUS TREASON,
doesn't like patriot Senator Cruz?

That is enough for me.

Cruz to Win. Cruz for America.


16 posted on 03/28/2015 5:32:10 PM PDT by Diogenesis ("When a crime is unpunished, the world is unbalanced.")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Denial moving to Bargaining/Acceptance.


17 posted on 03/28/2015 5:32:16 PM PDT by txhurl
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Eleanor Clift’s cat moved over to her neighbor’s house.

All that needs to be said.


18 posted on 03/28/2015 5:34:43 PM PDT by SnuffaBolshevik (Enter something.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Just imagine, Holder, Obama, Reid and even Hillery all in orange jumpsuits.

A guy can dream can’t he?


19 posted on 03/28/2015 5:37:34 PM PDT by taxcontrol
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To: Diogenesis





20 posted on 03/28/2015 5:38:20 PM PDT by MeshugeMikey ("Never, Never, Never, Give Up," Winston Churchill ><>)
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