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Will the Tea Party Abandon Ted Cruz Now That His Teen Pot Experimentation Has Been Exposed?
PJ Tatler ^ | February 4, 2015 | Paula Bolyard

Posted on 02/04/2015 6:36:11 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

I suppose it’s better that this GOP laundry is being aired now, a year out from the first Republican presidential primary. Better now than an October Surprise by a malicious Democrat hack two weeks out from the presidential election.

The Daily Mail’s David Martosko asked 10 potential GOP candidates about their past use of marijuana:

Rick Perry, Donald Trump and John Bolton say they have never smoked pot; Rand Paul hints that he ‘wasn’t a choirboy’ – but won’t answer directly. Marco Rubio refuses to answer, saying no one will believe him if the answer is ‘no’; Carly Fiorina will only say she opposes legalizing weed. Spokesmen for Govs. Scott Walker and Gov. Chris Christie, and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, ignored questions entirely.

The biggest headline was reserved for Sen. Ted Cruz:

EXCLUSIVE: Top Republican contender Ted Cruz ‘foolishly experimented with marijuana,’ his campaign admits after Bush confesses to high-school pot use.

“Teenagers are often known for their lack of judgment, and Sen. Cruz was no exception,” a Cruz spokesperson told The Daily Mail. “When he was a teenager, he foolishly experimented with marijuana. It was a mistake, and he’s never tried it since.”

Cruz’s admission comes less than a week after Jeb Bush admitted to the Boston Globe that he smoked weed at the elite prep school he attended as a teenager.

Again, it’s good that these revelations are surfacing now. No candidate wants to worry that his high school football buddies (or debate teammates) are going to get a call from a reporter asking about that epic party in 1988.

Also included in the Daily Mail article is this comment from an anonymous congressional staffer:

But Cruz’s conservative political base may not look kindly on the news. An aide to a Democratic senator told Daily Mail Online: “Just wait until the tea party gets its hooks in this. I mean, we all have skeletons and even moral crusaders eventually topple of their own weight, right?”

You can practically hear the breathless staffer gleefully panting this into his cell phone from a dark corner of his office as he rubs his hands together, fantasizing about the (literal) lynching that will be visited upon Ted Cruz on the steps of the Capitol, courtesy of the tea party.

The anonymous aide is correct on one point. We all have skeletons.

Most people — tea party supporters included — understand that teenagers sometimes make poor decisions. But teenagers change. Most grow up and learn from their mistakes. People are usually willing to forgive youthful indiscretions when an individual shows over time that he has changed his ways and is sincere about repudiating the past behavior.

People tend to be less forgiving of individuals like President Obama, who wrote nostalgically — almost fondly — of his high school pot and cocaine use in Dreams From My Father. Obama wrote that being high, “could at least help you to laugh at the world’s ongoing folly and see through all the hypocrisy and bullsh** and cheap moralism.” He also boasted several times on the campaign trail, “I inhaled…frequently! That was the point!” Sides-splitting stuff there.

Parents tend to get a little irritated when their elected officials make comments that put drug use in a positive light. And voters — at least those on the right — don’t particularly like politicians who say, “Don’t do drugs” with wink and a smile.

Considering that the revelations about Cruz are for something that happened some 30-years in the past and given his words of contrition about behavior he calls “foolish” and a “mistake,” this skeleton is not going to “topple” Cruz. He will not be thrown under the tea party bus and no one will care about this in a month (except for that anonymous Dem staffer who will still be trying to figure out how on earth this did not turn into the biggest scandal since Watergate).

One Ohio tea party leader put it in perspective, saying that Cruz should be judged on his current record rather than on decisions he made in his teen years.

“While I don’t condone the use of pot, I’m not going to judge his qualifications based on a poor choice he made in his teen years,” said Amy Brighton, co-coordinator of Medina Tea Party Patriots. “A constitutional scholar and an ardent supporter of conservatism – obviously, he has matured since then. Like all the presidential hopefuls, I’m going to judge him based on whether he has fought – both in words and actions – to restore personal and economic freedom.”


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bush; cannabis; fail; marijuana; memebuilding; pot; teaparty; tedcruz; wod
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
So now we're against LEGAL IMMIGRATION too?

Actually, I'm starting to question the sheer numbers.

But I understand that the easiest way a politician innoculates himself against a charge of being anti-immigrant is to promote himself as for expanded "legal" immigration.

Its a no-win subject. You are going to get pounded either way. He is against illegal immigration and is prepared to actually secure the border. To take the sting out, he says he'll help people come here legally, and he gets attacked for that too.

Some attacks are shape-shifting attacks. Whichever way you go, they'll attack from the other side. Jeb wants to essentially open the border, and Cruz is for H1B. I'm against expanding H1B, but it doesn't change my view of Cruz.

61 posted on 02/04/2015 7:24:12 AM PST by marron
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I thought “Tea” Party was a euphemism....


62 posted on 02/04/2015 7:24:49 AM PST by Manic_Episode (GOP = The Whig Party)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

No, next childish question.


63 posted on 02/04/2015 7:24:51 AM PST by SoConPubbie (Mitt and Obama: They're the same poison, just a different potency)
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To: ConservingFreedom

A simple case of no principles. Pot use is bad and deserves harsh punishment...unless OUR guy did it!


64 posted on 02/04/2015 7:26:49 AM PST by Wolfie
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
That simply isn't true. The reason people aren't going deeply into the sciences is because there isn't a lot of money in it compared to other careers. This is largely due to market control schemes colluded between corporations and Government such as the H-1b program.

65 posted on 02/04/2015 7:27:18 AM PST by Durus (You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. Ayn Rand)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Laughable. The answer is no.

Now let's talk about Obama and Clinton's cocaine snorting.

66 posted on 02/04/2015 7:28:01 AM PST by Timber Rattler (Just say NO! to RINOS and the GOP-E)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
But Cruz’s conservative political base may not look kindly on the news.

If an experimentation with pot is a dealbreaker with these people, their support was shaky to start with.

67 posted on 02/04/2015 7:28:20 AM PST by ScottinVA (Communism, liberalism and Islam: Kindred ideologies dedicated to America's destruction.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

You have to be a leftist or some other variety of idiot to miss the main point here. It’s what a man does as a man not what he did as a boy that matters. Let me try to make that clearer for the slow kids. I used to date Joan. We broke up amicably. I am now married to Mary. I know that Mary is okay with what I did before I met her. I’m pretty sure Joan, wherever she is, is also okay with what I am doing now. It’s sort of an order-of-operations matter.


68 posted on 02/04/2015 7:29:30 AM PST by muir_redwoods ("He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative." G.K .C)
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To: Durus

Being a career counselor by trade, I tend to disagree. Plus, there’s hardly any money in social work, but the classes are full and there’s a waiting list. Why is that?


69 posted on 02/04/2015 7:29:35 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.)
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To: ConservingFreedom
OF course, Mr. Cruz is ready to lock up everybody else:

"Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Friday criticized President Barack Obama for not arresting people in Colorado who violated federal law by using marijuana."

70 posted on 02/04/2015 7:30:29 AM PST by Wolfie
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
If the kids in this country would study half as hard as the Indians, Koreans, Chinese and Filipinos, we wouldn't need H1Bs or at least not very many. But they don't!

They don't because wages are undercut by imported indentured servants, it is a catch 22. IBM just laid off 10,000 IT people, so WTH? Let's target your occupation with imported scabs and see how you squeal like a pig.

71 posted on 02/04/2015 7:30:30 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

At least he wasn’t involved with a choom gang like the obola king!


72 posted on 02/04/2015 7:32:11 AM PST by US_MilitaryRules (The last suit you wear has no pockets!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

LOL! Oh, I know I’m done with him....I’m just scandalized. /S


73 posted on 02/04/2015 7:33:46 AM PST by CatherineofAragon ((Support Christian white males---the architects of the jewel known as Western Civilization.))
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To: ConservingFreedom

Just because you have a “STEM degree” from East Cowfart College and Barber School doesn’t mean you’re qualified to work in that field. Many of the college graduates I’ve interviewed over the years were functionally illiterate and/or borderline retarded. I wouldn’t hire them to clean up after my dogs.


74 posted on 02/04/2015 7:34:25 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.)
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To: Wolfie
OF course, Mr. Cruz is ready to lock up everybody else:

"Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Friday criticized President Barack Obama for not arresting people in Colorado who violated federal law by using marijuana."

Ugh. As much as I think Cruz's teen use is a non-issue, he's going to lose me by encouraging more of the same failed War On (Some) Drugs.

75 posted on 02/04/2015 7:34:29 AM PST by gdani (Ebola exposed the U.S. as fearful, easy-to-manipulate weaklings)
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To: cripplecreek
"LOL This tea partier did years of extensive research on pot and many other drugs."

Dang, CC, and I bet you never got a penny for your research.

76 posted on 02/04/2015 7:34:46 AM PST by CatherineofAragon ((Support Christian white males---the architects of the jewel known as Western Civilization.))
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To: CatherineofAragon

It appears that they’re giving grants for research in Colorado these days.


77 posted on 02/04/2015 7:36:05 AM PST by cripplecreek ("For by wise guidance you can wage your war")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

OMG- officers were smoking hashish in Europe during the Cold War.


78 posted on 02/04/2015 7:36:09 AM PST by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Mississippi!)
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To: C. Edmund Wright
Another idiot who doesn’t understand the Tea Party movement at all.

And nor do they try. They have purposely smeared the Tea Party from the get go. Most tea partiers could not give a damn that Cruz tried pot.

79 posted on 02/04/2015 7:36:45 AM PST by KC_Conspirator
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To: central_va

A) I no longer have an occupation to speak of, I’m 80% service-connected disabled and (B) I worked in sales for quite a while. Not too many H1Bs there, as you really should speak fluent English if you’re going to try and persuade someone to buy something, with a few exceptions.


80 posted on 02/04/2015 7:37:50 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.)
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