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 hes 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 Jerry Falwell, Cruz told a packed auditorium of students to Imagine a presidency where every word of Obamacare is repealed, and where the IRS is abolished a fantasy presidency where everything on the tea partys wish list comes true.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.
Wed all like to file our taxes by postcard, but most of us realize how impractical that would be, and that it couldnt happen unless the tax code were completely overhauled. Still, its the kind of idea that Cruz specializes in totally unachievable, but sounds good.
Thats why hes made for the tea party. He can take its obsession with a balanced budget, add a touch of sophistication, and before you know it, hes got a proposal and a presidential platform. Theres a word for that, its called demagoguery, and in todays fast-paced media environment, it could catch on, at least for a while, until the race gets serious.
Thats 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. Thats 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 dont 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 dont know that much yet about his temperament. Thats what the campaign trail is for, and so the months ahead will be enlightening for the voters and for the candidates too.
Like Juan and Linda.
LOL, yea, she is still the "endlessly yapping little stray dog trying mightly to bite Conservatives' ankles" Presstitute.
No sense in getting all worked up over who is better and who is worse. The first GOP presidential debate is only 5 months away. I have a feeling millions of potential voters will watch. Eventually we will have Iowa, NH & SC primary events. At that stage we will have ample evidence who is electable and who is not.
Cruz, Walker, Rubio, Paul (declared and almost declared), Jindal, kasich, Pence.....any one of them will be far better than Hillary in White House. I won’t get upset if any one of those GOP contenders win.
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