I would not want someone without some experience.
That, to me, ideally would mean both some reasonable high level government experience and some business experience. Mitt Romney was ideal, from that point of view, but that didn't work out very well (either in terms of his positions, which were pretty liberal, or in terms of his campaign, which was lackluster, or in terms of the result, which was Obama's second term)
So, experience isn't the only qualification, or a guarantee of a good candidate, but still it's important to most voters, including GOP primary voters.
Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson lack any political experience so I will not be voting for them. I will give Fiorina some credit for at least running on the GOP ticket for Gov. in the most liberal state in the USA.
Carson is deluded, just like all the other no elected experience vanity candidates before him: Trump, Perot, Buchanan, the Godfather's Pizza CEO, Alan Keys, etc.
Cruz meets the minimum experience standard, and that make him a credible and viable candidate. He has more experience than Obama did, and as much as Rubio and Paul, two other candidates near the top. He's past the threashold to be taken seriously by American voters.
He has very limited business experience himself. His wife's career could be a plus then, sort of balancing out a weak part of his resume. But they rub is it's with Wall Street.
For myself, and many other potential supporters, I think Wall Street connections are a particular valid concern.
On a purely pragmatic level we know that a full frontal attack on Wall Street privileges and practices, is a very likely attack from the Democratic candidate.
Regardless of whether you personally feel there is any merit in them, we know they are a powerful line of attack. Romney's run was destroyed in large part by painting him as a "vulture capitalist", a "huge fund multi-millionaire" and someone doing shady deals in foriegn jusidictions to avoid taxes. Again, maybe you feel these characterizations were unfair, but Romney was not able to counter them, and the played a huge part in his loss.
Many of us are anxious not to make the same mistake again, and nominate a candidate whose background can be easily demonized. Whether or not Cruz's wife's occupation would provide enough fodder for that is a reasonable subject of debate, in my opinion.
For others of us the association with Goldman-Sachs and Merrill Lynch is in itself troubling. Goldman, in particular has a terrible record of law breaking, including many multi-million and even billion dollar settlements with various regulator bodies for breaking the law. The more you look into these the more egregious they turn out to be. I urge you to do some research, perhaps I will post some links on this at a future date.
The entire spectacle of "too big to fail" banks getting incredible deals from the government, and the special treatment they received stinks to many Americans.
Hopefully, you can recall that the Tea Party movement arose as a huge unscripted outpouring of anger at these bailouts. Not only was Goldman one of the largest recipients of bail out funds, we know they were in the room when the decision was made to bail out AIG, something critical to their survival.
As a result of the economic chaos caused by Goldman and a handful of other large Wall Street firms the American economy was sent into a near-crash. Millions of Americans lost jobs, millions more lost homes, everyone suffered as the economy contracted, and many feel it has not fully recovered.
We'd like a candidate who can pin a lot of this, the failed or underwhelming recovery, on Obama. Someone who was, herself, part of two bailed out firms is probably not a good person to do that. Heidi Cruz makes $600,000 a year plus bonus, a lot of Americans feel that it's pretty unjustified for Wall Street bankers to earn those types of salary when their continued existence is a gift from taxpayers, whose average annual income is $51,399 dollars.
I understand that you view this as "capitalist system experience". I'd say running a business successfully is that, I'd say this is a crony-capitalist shakedown, that has often included very unsavory practices (again, google "Goldman-Sachs guilty and read the links, then do the same for Merrill-Lynch, HSBC and Chase.)
I hope you now can at least understand other people's point of view on this issue.
Have a nice weekend.
This “connected to wall street” crap is straight out of Camp Warren.
Ted Cruz seems like he is fighting for the Constitution and the conservative cause. Senator Cruz is linked to special interests. Ted Cruz must first serve the special interest groups or his campaign will not get funded.