Posted on 01/21/2016 7:27:45 PM PST by TBBT
Donald Trump leads the polls nationally and in most states in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. There are understandable reasons for his eminence, and he has shown impressive gut-level skill as a campaigner. But he is not deserving of conservative support in the caucuses and primaries. Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones. Trump's political opinions have wobbled all over the lot. The real-estate mogul and reality-TV star has supported abortion, gun control, single-payer health care à la Canada, and punitive taxes on the wealthy. (He and Bernie Sanders have shared more than funky outer-borough accents.) Since declaring his candidacy he has taken a more conservative line, yet there are great gaping holes in it.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
It isn't that Cruz is just as good -- it's that Trump exhibits every evidence of being a life-long left-leaning moderate. He's self-absorbed, even ridiculous. A lot of people here sucked it up and voted for Romney last time, and went home sick at heart.
Fewer are going to suck up this time to accepting that the Republican party is entitled to a conservative's vote (which is essentially the stand being taken) if Trump pans out the disaster that he's looking like, and the conversation on FR is reflecting it now. Romney Redux.
No matter how great if feels, you know that anger and vengeance are bad things to follow. It's what any good parent would teach a child. Rather follow someone whose appeal is optimism and workable solutions.
Cruz appeals to my desire to see Constitutional limited government principles restored to America, the Republican party, and conservatism.
I'll leave the guy who appeals to anger and vengeance behind.
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