Posted on 12/14/2015 3:36:55 AM PST by markomalley
When the school bully starts glowering in your direction, the worst thing you can do is hold up your hands and say, “Please don’t hit me.” It’s a lesson most of us learn in the schoolyard, but one that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz seems to have forgotten.
Now, here comes the knuckle sandwich.
Cruz, who is making a strong run in Republican presidential primary polling, has done everything he can to put off an inevitable showdown with frontrunner Donald Trump. The reluctance is understandable – Trump’s attacks on other candidates in the race have been devastatingly effective. To avoid them, Cruz has refused to seriously confront some of the billionaire’s most outrageous statements, and he has repeatedly said how glad he is to have Trump in the race.
Late last week though, the mask slipped ever so slightly. In a closed-door meeting with supporters last week, according to a recording obtained by The New York Times, Cruz suggested that voters might be concerned Trump doesn’t have the “judgment” necessary to be in charge of nuclear weapons. Further, he said that his repeated praise of Trump has been calculated to assure that when the former reality television star falters, he will collect “the lions share” of trump voters.
Cruz at first tried to cast doubt on the accuracy of The Times story, but when the audio was released, he could no longer deny it. Instead, he took to social media to proclaim that he doesn’t want to fight with Trump, whom he referred to as “terrific.”
Trump took a few lazy swipes at Cruz on social media heading into the weekend, but it was in two taped interviews for CNN’s State of the Union and Fox News Sunday that he revealed the line of attack he’s planning to use.
And, in keeping with the schoolyard bully metaphor, it boils down to: “Nobody likes you!”
Okay, even Trump is more subtle than that, at least sometimes. What he went after Cruz for was his “temperament,” saying that the Texan doesn’t have the personality to be president.
Many will no doubt view it as beyond parody that a thin-skinned former reality television star, who lashes out on social media and in public remarks at the most trivial of slights, should be talking about his opponent’s temperament. But, as with a lot of the attacks Trump has leveled on his opponents in the past, there’s a grain of truth in his criticisms that he will, by constant repetition, try to force into the minds of Cruz supporters.
In this case, it’s that people who know Ted Cruz just don’t like him.
By most accounts, Cruz is loathed by many of his fellow Republicans in the Senate, to the point where he is now often refused common legislative courtesies. Journalists have done multiple pieces exploring Cruz’s background, and with few exceptions they find former colleagues and acquaintances practically standing in line to say they can’t stand him. Now Trump appears to have made the decision that Cruz’s inability to make people like him is his biggest vulnerability.
Asked by CNN host Jake Tapper on Sunday morning why voters should prefer him to Cruz, Trump said, “Because I’m more capable. Because I have a much better temperament. Because I actually get along with people much better than he does.
“People don’t know that about me. I actually have a great relationship with people. In fact I was criticized at the beginning because I get along with Democrats and liberals and Republicans and conservatives. I get along with everybody...”
“And he doesn’t?” Tapper cut in.
“No, I don’t think he does,” Trump replied.
He went further in a conversation with Fox News, after host Chris Wallace asked him about comments Cruz made
“Do you notice he said it behind my back?” Trump began. “Look, I don’t think he’s qualified to be president, because I don’t think he has the right temperament. I don’t think he’s got the right judgment.”
“When you look at the way he’s dealt with the Senate, where he goes in there, frankly, like a little bit of a maniac. You’re never going to get things done that way. Look, I built a phenomenal business. I’m worth many, many billions of dollars. I have some of the greatest assets anywhere in the world. You can’t walk into the Senate and scream and call people liars and not be able to cajole and get along with people. He’ll never get anything done, and that’s the problem with Ted.”
It’s a criticism that works on two levels. First, the fact that many people who know Cruz genuinely dislike him is seeping into the public consciousness, and could have an effect on how he is viewed by voters who haven’t yet made up their minds. However, it points out that Cruz has a relatively skimpy list of legislative accomplishments, in part because he is a first-term senator, but also in part because his colleagues don’t want to work with him.
As one observer on Twitter put it Sunday morning, “Trump is like a heat-seeking missile for the other candidate's fatal flaw.” We’ll see how many hits Cruz can tolerate.
Ditto. And this even started before Cruz was elected, when Mitch McConnell was bankrolling Cruz' primary opponent David Dewhurst.
I think this quote sums up Cruz supporters perfectly -
...”have you ever tried to convince a 17-year-old teenager their boyfriend is wrong for them”?...
I would fully expect Trump to choose a fellow Democrat as his running mate.
Are you serious?
Did I say he’s unliked by the conservatives? I did’t mean to put conservatives in the hat as ALL conservatives like Cruz, and probably MOST conservative like TRump, but the non-conservatives, you know, like the people you need to have vote for you, they dislike Cruz more than they do Trump.
REmember the Bill Buckley rule. You run the candidate who is the most electably conservative.
The only published attack I have seen by Cruz on Trump has come from the Trump camp. Just sayin'.
But the one Clinton v. Trump vision that sticks in my mind is seeing Hillary ads stating how Trump was one of her campaign supporters.
And one more thing. I think it’s a two way deal here between those two. I think Cruz can learn from Trump and Trump can sure as heck learn from Cruz. I really sense that there’s chemistry between the two of them. Trump is not attacking Cruz personally, he’s once again going to the heart of the issue. Cruz is the trouble maker, the squeaky gate, and it’s true he ticked off a lot of people, people like it or not have a lot of clout. NOthing succeeds like success. When Trump starts winning his negotiating capital goes up with the RNC. They will soon realize that they stand to win really big with him. Trump will soothe their ruffled feathers. Notice every time now he mentions Bush or Rubio or Rand Paul, he prefaces it with “these are good people, but....etc.”
Cruz lost me when Americans are out of work yet he demanded 325,000 more foreign tech workers be allowed in this year alone while companies were firing Americans to hire the cheap foreigners.
The debate tomorrow will be INTERESTING. I hate to see Ted and Donald fighting but I guess it had to be.
Oh please. Trump brags all the time about how great a dealmaker he is.
When I lived in Chicago I voted for the senior Mayor Daly, because, he got the job done. There was never a candidate on the republican side who came close to him. I think I voted for the son a couple times too. They are the votes I’ve ever cast for a democrat in over 40 years of voting.
People will vote for Trump because they know he’ll protect us along with the other. He’s selling a dream, a goal, an America that once was.
Cruz and the others are too young to know that America. IT’s the pre-Kennedy assassination. IT’s when you could keep your doors unlocked, walk on sidewalks on warm summer nights in your neighborhoods, show up at the last minute to catch a plane etc. Sure we were making shoddy products back then, because wee got fat and lazy until the Japanese showed us, but it was an American who showed the Japanese how to make quality products.
WE can be that America again can have a true reset. Hillary Clinton? Is anyone seriously going to vote for her? Do you know anyone who is going to vote for her other than die hard liberals, and I think they’re going to stay home if Bernie doesn’t get the nod.
What if Bernie Sanders wins NH?
“But I agree with Trump that Cruz’s ineffectiveness as a legislator (which is very dramatic) is not a sign of future success in the realm of electoral politics.”
How will Trump, who will tick the legislative branch off ten times as much as Cruz ever has, be able to make any difference? The answer is he will not. At least Cruz has experience in Congress. Trump has never held any public office.
I think I’ve said that’s the only thing Trump has supported that stumps me. Why does he support Ethanol subsidies? Maybe we don’t really know the truth about the Ethanol industry. Someone posted here that Ethanol does not receive gov’t support and it’s made from corn cobs not real food, but is that true?
I hear that Ethanol is not really good for your car’s engine.
So, once again what is fact and what is fiction here?
LOL.
Let's see Donald Trump try to find a 'fatal flaw' in Ted Cruz's conservatism. We'll wait.
Nobody likes Hillary, even more so.
Well he’s said a few other things that should stump you too....but thanks for admitting that this is a head scratcher.
Ethanol is bad on car engines and HORRIBLE on boat engines.
I think Cruz would be a great VP, even better on the SCOTUS
He is correct that the Left needs for him and Trump to be in a cage match, and while I still consider Trump a viable second, I'm not too thrilled with the way he's approaching it.
That said, it's politics and they both need to separate themselves from the other to gain the upper hand - will be interesting because Trump is pretty much a blunt weapon and Cruz can adapt from a scalpel to a blunt weapon as necessary...
I’m thinking Trump would let the free market deal with Ethanol. He’d take away any subsidies. I’d like to know if it actually is cleaner? It makes me sick to think that they’re taking food to make something that goes in an engine.
Clearly, you deny reality...and lost your credibility.
A few Cruz accomplishments include:
- Silence during Mississippi RNC voter fraud
- Voting for the infamous Corker bill
- Voting for TPA
- Now pushing Pathway Amnesty for the 40+ MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS in America
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