Did you see the young girl in the focus group of the Fox guy with the dead rodent on his head? She said she was really interested in Cruz for the first time. She said that up until now she had written him off as a religious guy, but now she sees he can talk economics and she is giving him serious thought. I hope there were others like her watching.
The bizarre thing is how much the average Republican just doesn’t even know who Cruz is or know much about him. I know a Republican who pays attention fairly closely to the news but could barely remember who Cruz was the other day. Cruz has been the darling of the news junkie conservative like us for years, but he is far from a household name among rank-and-file Republicans.
It doesn’t help that Fox went on full-tilt Rubio spin tonight with the hosts barely mentioning him except in passing (and Krauthammer quoting Cruz without attribution, claiming he couldn’t remember who said the line that he liked). The Fox coverage of Cruz was totally out-of-step with the actual voter reaction as recorded throughout the internet, and which was reflected only in Luntz’s panel, which had a huge response to Cruz, and lukewarm to Rubio and Christie even though Luntz tried to push them on the panel.
Cruz is getting pigeonholed oddly as coming from the religious wing by some of these Republican voters, which is strange to anyone who’s followed his Senate career, especially the groundbreaking Obamacare filibuster, which is what defines him for me. Cruz is the perfectly balanced candidate among all the wings, from the Constitutional libertarian freedom wing, the religious liberty wing, the free market capitalist wing and the anti-terrorist national defense wing. People who are pigeonholing him have probably seen him talk very strongly about one issue without realizing he is just as intense, passionate and thorough on every issue.
-— ? She said she was really interested in Cruz for the first time. She said that up until now she had written him off as a religious guy, but now she sees he can talk economics and she is giving him serious thought -—
That’s what I’ve been telling my wife, “people only know the guy who flies around on a broomstick. Wait until people hear him.”
“How can people not know about him?”
“All they know is what they’ve heard through the media.”
I think the polls are going to get quite a shake-up after this. Rubio will rise too.
The media blackout could only hold for so long. I guess they figured it was their only hope.