Posted on 11/25/2015 8:16:30 AM PST by Isara
At the start of his presidential campaign in April, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was raking in millions of dollars in campaign contributions and appeared to be the favorite candidate of choice for many conservatives. Long before Donald Trump stole the spotlight, Cruz was drawing more praise and contempt (depending on who you spoke to at the time) from Republicans and the media for his unwavering commitment to traditional conservative values and the Constitution.
It was an exciting time for many of his supporters, but in my mind, I thought the huge wave of support for Cruz was a death sentence for the conservative movement in the 2016 general election. As all of the polling indicated at the time, Cruz was expected to do poorly against Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head matchup, and while I have always greatly respected Cruz, I didn't (and still don't) want a Republican presidential nominee who can't win in November 2016.
So, as I became convinced someone had to talk some sense into the well-intentioned but delusional conservative masses, I penned a reasonable critical assessment of Cruz' chances against Clinton in the general election, warning Cruz supporters that he probably couldn't beat Clinton and that any money given to his campaign would likely be wasted. The article was published by Breitbart in April and thousands of people weighed in (mostly to tell me I was wrong).
Since April, a lot has changed in the race.
Ben Carson and Trump have garnered far more support than many thought they would; we've had numerous presidential debates in which Cruz performed masterfully; socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) emerged briefly as a legitimate threat to Clinton's dominance; and Jeb Bush's campaign has (thankfully) become nearly irrelevant.
More important than all of that, however, has been Clinton's handling of the Benghazi tragedy. I've been following that story since the very beginning and always knew it presented a threat to her chances of capturing the presidency, but my view was that because the American public had essentially seemed disinterested in that tragedy and because the media appeared to be covering for Clinton and President Barack Obama, I felt like Benghazi wouldn't have much of an effect on the general election in 2016.
Although there is still a lot of time remaining between now and Election Day, all of the evidence now suggests Benghazi will play a significant role next November, and with the right candidate in place, conservative Republicans have a great chance of capturing the White House for the first time since Ronald Reagan left in 1989.
Although many in the liberal mainstream media seemed to declare Clinton's October hearings on Benghazi a big political victory for her, most of us who have followed the controversy from the beginning know her testimony revealed some very important details-the most important of which being the revelation Clinton told her daughter Chelsea the assault was a terrorist attack just before telling the public a YouTube video was to blame for the supposedly spontaneous event. Clinton's story about the YouTube video was used for two weeks by the Obama administration to shield itself from what could have a disastrous turn of events just weeks before the 2012 election. It's clear now, beyond any reasonable doubt, Clinton knew it was likely a terrorist attack but told the American people and the families of the victims a radically different story.
The media-as expected-came to Clinton's rescue during and after the Benghazi congressional hearings in October, and Clinton admittedly did a very nice job (from a political perspective) handling the day-long questioning. Clinton's camp also successfully convinced many Americans the hearings were politically motivated. According to a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, more than one-third surveyed said the hearings were too partisan.
However, despite Clinton's best efforts, her testimony and her Benghazi lies will absolutely play an important role in 2016. Even after all of the media spin, 47 percent of respondents in the same poll indicated the possibility of a cover-up would play an important role when making a decision of who to vote for, and 40 percent of independents said they were not satisfied with Clinton's explanations at the hearing.
While those may not seem like earth-shattering numbers, they are. When the general election actually gets underway in the summer, millions of people who are currently considering voting for Clinton will be barraged with one campaign commercial after another about Clinton's cover up, and family members of the Benghazi victims will almost certainly get involved in support of the Republican candidate. The media blitz that is certain to come will make the John Kerry-Swift Boat disaster look like a political nullity.
In August 2015, Quinnipiac released a survey indicating "liar" was the term most-often used to describe Clinton, but by August 2016, I'm willing to bet the results will be significantly worse.
Yes, many independents today feel that the Benghazi investigation has been politically motivated (although not as many as the media often suggests), but when faced with commercial after commercial of family members demanding answers, they won't care anymore what Republicans did or didn't do in a hearing a year earlier; all the focus will be on Clinton and whether or not she lied to the American people.
The reason I thought Cruz would lose to Clinton was based on the damage that had been done unfairly to his reputation by the liberal establishment media, and polling today still suggests candidates such as Carson and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) would have a better chance in a head-to-head race. But, given the current state of the race and what's likely to occur in the future, I have to admit that what I said before about Cruz was wrong. He can win against Clinton. In fact, he may have a better chance than others currently polling against him because I don't think any of the other candidates could handle Clinton (especially on Benghazi) in a debate as well as Cruz can.
Of course, Cruz can only beat Hillary Clinton if he wins the Republican nomination, and at the moment, it's not clear how likely that possibility is.
Justin Haskins is currently the editor of one of the nation's leading free-market think tanks headquartered in Chicago, Illinois and is the editor-in-chief of the New Revere Daily-Press.
Well, six months ago this same writer was saying no way that Cruz could beat Hillary, so.....
That “1” issue separates the wheat form the chaff.
{”I’m damn sick of people who complain about the GOPe betrayal of conservatives only to have them turn around and tell me that America can only be saved if I betray my most deeply held ideals and vote for a big government progressive because he’s right on 1 issue.”}
Worthy repeat.
Well, six months ago this same writer was saying no way that Cruz could beat Hillary, so.....
******************
He’s saying that it is now a possiblity, but he isn’t clear how likely that possiblity is.
I do think it will come down to Trump and either Cruz or Rubio. We are 67 days from
the first test to see what some of the voters (caucus) goers actually think.
Take care......
Bumnp for Cruz
And a sig change.
Pardon me, but that last sentence should be: “We are playing badminton games with people who *HAVE KILLED* for what they want.”
I firmly believe “Arkancide” is fact rather than fiction.
you’ve never been published have you?
I have a feeling we’re going to see this from more and more people as time goes on...
That is excellent.
This is why so-called "Conservatives" are our own worst enemies. Rather than voting conscience, they play the "electability" game and shoot down the best candidates before they even get a hearing.
I have a better idea... how about you vote (and cheer) for the candidate that best reflects your values in the Primary? I'll do the same. We'll end up with candidates that actually reflect our values for once!
“you’ve never been published have you?”
So please let us know what that has to do with the price of tea in China.
Apology accepted 8-)
Cruz knows how to make real, LASTING change in my opinion. I don't see that in any of the other candidates.You make an excellent observation here and it touches on something I believe is the most important aspect of the 2016 presidential election.
Cruz can cause lasting, revolutionary change in the current government (American Revolutionary War type of change) by reclaiming our Constitution which will reduce the size and power of the federal government as the original Founders intended and restore Rule of Law.
Obama has set some frightening precedents in extra-Constitutional lawlessness, permitted by an impotent GOP Congress, that must be repudiated completely by the next President.
If the Republic described in the U.S. Constitution is to survive (it's hanging by a thread) only a leader with complete knowledge and commitment to the original blueprints can make that happen. I truly believe 2016 is our last chance.
An autocratic future President driven by ego, while appealing if he shares our views, only serves to reinforce the dangerous precedents set by Obama, thus proceeding further down the current path we're on leading away from the Constitution. If both sides try to make laws by executive order, it will be exploited in truly terrible ways by a Democrat President in the future and the constitutional Republic ceases to exist.
Released from the constraints of the U.S. Constitution and without a moral people it was designed to govern, through misapplication of great wealth and technology to control every part of our lives, the U.S. federal government has the terrible potential over coming decades to become one of the most tyrannical, oppressive regimes the world has ever known.
I’m so glad you asked.....I set a trap for you and you stepped right in it.
You made the point that this author was obviously directed by this publication to write a certain thing towards a certain end game. Thus, you don’t have any clue that in ALL of these conservative sites, the writers are NOT ASSIGNED articles for this reason, and not all these writers and editors agree on everything. Thus, since you obviously don’t know that, I knew you weren’t.....and yeah, I baited you into this trap.
If you had been published so much as once, you would have known this.
What do you mean Isara left that sentence out? I saw it in the excerpted piece.
So ...? In that post, it wasn't an article that she was quoting, it was an excerpt of her choosing from the article leading the thread. FReepers have been doing that all the years I've been here.
Excellent post.
It's not that simple. I represent myself better than anybody else; I don't run, because I know I'd never win. Similarly, I would argue that by and large that holds true for most people: they are best capable of speaking for, and representing their own views, but don't run for office either out of apathy or because they have assessed their chances of winning as somewhere between slim and none.
Supporting a candidate therefore is not just a matter of 'who best represents me,' but electability has to figure somewhat into the calculus. Hypothetically, suppose there was a candidate who represented you with 100% agreement but didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning even with all your support, and a second candidate who only represented 85% of your views but would have the election locked up if they obtained your support.
Note that I'm not drawing any parallels to any candidates in the GOP right now regardless of what you or others may infer from the above. I'm simply saying that unless we as individuals throw our own hat into the ring, we are ceding our representation to somebody else, and in doing so must (if was have any brains) throw our support to somebody we believe is electable. It has to be part of the consideration.
Respectfully, that’s exactly why we no longer have representative self-government, why our politics has devolved into political bookie-ism, and why generally the GOP ends up nominating someone that the base of the party viscerally hates.
Moreover, electability is not a static quality. Just as a candidate can do things to make himself more or less electable, supporters can also influence that as well. My original contention was, and remains, that by not running for office ourselves, we are by default, accepting someone who will not represent us perfectly, but, 'good enough,' but in order to do so, we have to hitch our wagon to somebody who we reasonably expect to win. Sometimes that expectation is founded in reality and sometimes in false hopes.
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