First of all, Cruz is suspect on legal immigration. He seems to be okay with mass legal immigration generally, and specifically has bought into the myth that we have a shortage of high tech workers. Any Republican not committed to ending mass immigration is just whistling past the graveyard.
Otherwise Cruz is impressive. It would be nice to have the clearly superior debater for a change, and someone capable of comfortably and ably articulating a conservative message.
But Cruz cannot reasonably hope for a Reagan-like landslide. No conservative can. Reagan’s America was much more white, and therefore much friendlier to Republicans and conservatives. Remember, Romney did about as well with whites percentage wise as Reagan did in 1980. But thanks to immigration-driven demographic changes, the difference is one between an easy landslide win in 1980 and an embarrassing four point loss in 2012.
It is almost inconceivable that a Republican carries populous states like Calif, NY, and Illinois now.
I do agree that the GOP’s best shot is going after disaffected Perot white working class voters. This could win them states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and reclaim Ohio. It could help them hold southern states like NC. It could help them everywhere. This could allow for an impressive electoral college victory for Republicans. But what evidence is there that the GOP will give these people a reason to vote for them? The GOP elite would rather go after a more fashionable Hispanic vote that is naturally hostile to them and naturally inclined towards the Democrats.
> “First of all, Cruz is suspect on legal immigration. He seems to be okay with mass legal immigration generally, and specifically has bought into the myth that we have a shortage of high tech workers.”
You are misinformed, woefully incomplete in your knowledge and misguided likely by detractors. That means you’re not fit to lead a discussion on this subject of Ted Cruz and immigration.
To correct your misconception first recognize that Ted Cruz is talking about Einstein and Von Braun types of intellect.
It is a fact that America does not have a monopoly on great brains that exist and are born everyday.
Consider for sake of argument that the world has 10,000,000 scientific geniuses of which America has 50% born and cultivated on its soil and the remaining 50% are born throughout the rest of the world in places such as Russia, China and India.
What Ted Cruz is saying is that to maintain America’s superior technical edge, it must grab as much as it can of the 50% that are born outside the USA just as it did following WWII in bringing German brains to American soil.
It is a question of ‘market share’. America is still attractive to foreign scientists but only if they are recruited and given lots of assurances of academic freedom and plenty of budget to develop their ideas and carry on with others in their class.
Ted Cruz is not talking about tech workers programming a CNC machine or anything like that. He is talking about top university and corporate scientists.
It is analogous to sports. An American team will pay what it takes for top talent. Same thing goes in high level science.
Ted Cruz is not for mass immigration. He has said that illegal aliens must be found and deported. To ‘find’ them he says a system of identifying them must be implemented so they can be rounded up.
All of the above are easily verified by downloading and reading many of Ted Cruz’ amendments (none of which were passed) to the Senate immigration bill. Although none of his amendments were passed, he and his staff worked hard to get everything on record where he stands. And he is definitely not for any kind of amnesty or supportive of any path to citizenship for illegal aliens.
Do your homework and you will see.
Second part of response following response post #78.
> “But Cruz cannot reasonably hope for a Reagan-like landslide. No conservative can. Reagan’s America was much more white, and therefore much friendlier to Republicans and conservatives. Remember, Romney did about as well with whites percentage wise as Reagan did in 1980. But thanks to immigration-driven demographic changes, the difference is one between an easy landslide win in 1980 and an embarrassing four point loss in 2012.”
Again it is evident you are injecting your own observables into this mix. Several independent analyses based on scientifically representative samples concluded it was the Perot demographic that sunk Romney. This is the blue collar working class demographic that did not vote for a presidential candidate. They will vote for a conservative and no one else. They number 6 million plus strong.
Cruz can carry a large portion of Latinos. The Latino demographic will either vote for a Latino or for a non-Latino who their union bosses (e.g. SEIU) say vote for. But they will defy union orders if there is an unapproved Latino on the ballot. That’s the way their loyalty runs. Therefore, Cruz can carry California.