Posted on 03/02/2016 4:49:32 PM PST by drewh
n. Ted Cruz is right: He is the most successful Republican this year not named Donald Trump. After Super Tuesday, he has won four GOP contests, including the primary in his delegate-rich home state, Texas. Marco Rubio has won just one contest, the Minnesota caucus, and John Kasich has won bupkis.
The Republican nomination race has been a three-man fight for at least two weeks now, since Jeb Bush threw in the towel, and in his Texas-Oklahoma victory speech, Cruz asked his remaining non-Trump rivals — meaning Rubio, mostly — to "prayerfully consider" leaving him to fight Trump mano a mano. He repeated his formula — true when he said it — that he is the only candidate who has beaten Trump so far.
The online betting markets seemed to buy the argument. On the New Zealand–based site PredictIt, Cruz's chances of winning the GOP nomination rose to a high of 10 percent Wednesday morning, putting him even with Rubio, who fell 1 point (Trump was the odds-on favorite, at 76 percent). The Irish betting site Paddy Power put Cruz's odds of winning at an improved 12-to-1, versus 5-to-1 for Rubio and 1-to-7 for Trump. Those numbers will probably move in Cruz's favor, at Rubio's expense, as the Super Tuesday results are digested.
More importantly, establishment Republicans seem to be warming up, if warily, to the idea of Cruz as their last best hope of stopping the Trump juggernaut. "Ted Cruz is not my favorite by any means," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in an interview with CBS News late Tuesday night. "But we may be in a position where we have to rally around Ted Cruz as the only way to stop Donald Trump."
In this case, the medicine may be worse than the malady.
Will the GOP establishment line up behind Ted Cruz now?
This is Donald Trump's world. You're just living in it. Donald Trump is very likely going to be the Republican nominee, and nobody knows what that will look like in a general election match-up against Hillary Clinton, the probable Democratic nominee. It's a good bet that once he has the Republican nomination sewn up, Trump will execute his own version of what just about every nominees does: Moderate his message for a general electorate. He might be able to pull it off, too, because he's shameless and a very good showman.
The first warning bell for Republicans if they rally behind Cruz is that he probably wouldn't moderate his "consistent conservative" pitch very much. Purity is his core brand, and he's too invested in it to let it go. That might show more integrity than Trump's ideological flexibility, but it isn't a great recipe for winning over suburban soccer moms, say, or moderate independents.
The second red flag is where Ted Cruz has won, and where he hasn't. Oklahoma? Mitt Romney won 67 percent of the vote there in the 2012 election. John McCain and George W. Bush won 66 percent in 2008 and 2004, respectively. Texas went for Romney 57 percent to 41 percent. Any Republican is going to win those two states in November. Iowa is a legitimate swing state, but Cruz had to practically live in the state for months to pull off a narrow victory over Trump in the GOP caucus. He wouldn't expend the same time or energy again for seven electoral votes.
Rubio, on the other hand, crushed his rivals in the Minnesota caucus, nearly beat Trump in the Virginia primary, and slid by Cruz for second place in Nevada. Those are the type of swing states that will decide the next election. Rubio won only one of them, but he has consistently performed more strongly than Cruz in states Republicans need to put on the table in November. Trump is winning in all kinds of states: red, blue, and purple.
The last thing #NeverTrump Republicans might want to consider before throwing what weight they have behind Cruz is a factor that's less tangible and quantifiable but probably equally important: He's not very likable. None of his Senate colleagues have endorsed him or seem to like him. Cruz can wear that as a badge of his anti-"Washington dealmaker" piety, but at some point it just comes across as antisocial. I don't know Cruz, and I'm sure his friends and family enjoy his company, but as a public figure, he flunks the "would you want to have a beer with him?" test.
Cruz knows that. "If you want someone to grab a beer with, I may not be that guy," he said at a Republican debate in November. "But if you want someone to drive you home, I'll get the job done." Maybe voters want a sober designated driver, but so far they seem to be going with the rich guy in the flashy sports car.
Donald Trump says a lot of outrageous things, but he pulls it off because he is also somehow personable. Would I vote for Trump? No. Would I have a beer with him? If he was buying, probably. Comedian John Oliver, before clinically dissecting Trump for 20 minutes, acknowledged on his show Sunday that "there is a part of me that even likes this guy. It's a part I hate, but it is a part of me."
There is something comforting in the idea of a Cruz-Clinton matchup, or even a Rubio-Clinton race. The arguments and parameters are predictable, and the electorate would know more or less where each candidate stands. Trump is shrewdly charting his own course, and that's thrown the whole race into uncharted territory. This may well be his core appeal, and it may also be the Republican Party's undoing.
It makes sense that Republican leaders want to neutralize the Trump threat. It's not clear they will be able to — Republican voters get the final say, as they should. But if they do settle on one anti-Trump to champion, they pick Ted Cruz at their own peril. If the voters reject the other Trump alternatives, Rubio and Kasich, it might be safer for the GOP elite to bet it all on orange: Donald Trump may be a wild card, but Ted Cruz is a joker.
Do you suppose CRuz listed his Canadian citizenship on his Senate filing papers?
This Texan does not recall cRuz running as a dual citizen. I wouldn’t have supported him, knowing that.
Only problem is Trump is maybe 20% on the conservative side.
...”Trump is overestimating his charm—and also underestimating the sober spiritual judgment of real Christians.”.......
Even so if Trump wins as the Republican Candidate then is it then true any other vote is actually a vote against Trump and therefore for Hillary.
Like it or not their are two parties....So it would certainly appear two winners to choose from. Either Trump or Hillary.....anyone else voting for would not be counted as a vote for the President as their are simply two parties and two winners...????
There is one thing on your list that I agree with. The TPA thing I do not agree with Cruz's vote.
The Corker bill was a last ditch deal that Cruz did not want (wasn't tough enough) and Cruz only voted for it because it least it might hold up Obama for a few days. Even Sessions bit his tongue and voted for it. Sometimes you just gotta make the best of what is in front of you. Only one republican voted against it.
H-1B was part of the poison pill package to try sweeten the lot (take the bait). Sessions talks about this also.
Now since you want to sling fecal matter, own up to Trump's past which is a several big stinking piles of flip flops and rotate it with some ethanol.
Hated? Well that what the powers want us to believe anyway. Everything that comes out of f&cking DC is theater. Nothing is as it seems.
PERIL???
maybe at the GOP’s best chance to maintain decency...
everyone should be wary of Clinton and trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=152&v=8YoHdSR-5nA
he is a complete liar, hear it in his own words...
At the end of the day, GOPe stick together. They will back Cruz before they back the true outsider, Trump.
“Lindsey Graham: Maybe It’s Time to Rally Around Cruz, The Guy I Joked About Murdering Last Month”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3404287/posts
At the end of the day, GOPe stick together. They will back Cruz before they back the true outsider, Trump.
“Lindsey Graham: Maybe It’s Time to Rally Around Cruz, The Guy I Joked About Murdering Last Month”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3404287/posts
“The Corker bill was a last ditch deal that Cruz did not want (wasn’t tough enough) and Cruz only voted for it because it least it might hold up Obama for a few days.”
“wasn’t tough enough”???? It was designed to implement Obama’s Iranian agreement.
No, his vote did not hold up Obama for a few days. The Corker bill was written by the White House to implement the Iranian agreement.
“Only one republican voted against it.”
Senator Cotton of Arkansas. He did not buckle to Obama wishes.
“H-1B was part of the poison pill package to try sweeten the lot (take the bait).”
No, was separate from the bill, and the poison pill thing is nonsense anyway.
“Sessions talks about this also.”
Did you happen to notice who Sessions endorsed?
“Now since you want to sling fecal matter”
Since when has VOTING become fecal matter for you. Is that what you call facts you don’t have the guts to face?
Trump has never been an elected official affecting government policy.
If you can find clarity as to Natural born citizen, I'll buy you a steak dinner. Nowhere in the constitution does it describe what constitutes “natural born”.
Is it two U.S. citizen parents...or one? Is it born on American soil or anywhere in the world to one or two American citizen parents? The U.S. supreme court has refused several times to adjudicate the Natural born clause in the constitution. Furthermore, it has always been understood in government circles, if your mom or dad or both mom and dad are U.S. citizens at the time of ones birth, regardless of where you are born, you are a natural born citizen. It's just the way it is. Ain't gonna change, that is unless the supreme court finally puts it to rest.
Until then, Ted Cruz is eligible to become president. Another fact that just can't be altered no matter how one may feel personally.
The GOPe started today with Linda Graham supporting Cruz. The next step is for Mitt to help clear the way by blasting Trump. The wheels are in motion for Cruz. Rubio has shown he cannot do it.
I have always wondered about the Republicans (like Lindsay Graham) that let Bill Clinton off the hook by exclusively focusing on Lewinsky in the impeachment hearings and ignoring real crimes.
Like . . . was there some kind of FIX in, by the globalists, that needed to look serious to us flyover peeps about going after the father of NAFTA when he literally got caught with his pants down?
That’s not what I’d asked. I never mentioned his US citizenship.
I asked ...
Do you suppose cRuz listed his Cruznadian citizenship on his Senate filing papers?
And....
I don’t recall him running as a dual citizen and that THIS Texan wouldn’t have supported him, if I’d known about that.
Again, Ted Cruz is not responsible for every comment made by every politcain. Is Ted Cruz a politician...sure. Is he of the ilk of Lindsey Graham..no, I don’t believe that for a minute.
Ted Cruz is my senator. He’z done a great job and has kept his word to the citizens of Texas.
Are you referring to Ted Cruz running for president as a dual citizen of Canada/U.S.? Sorry, need clarity in your question.
Did the GOPe congress pass Cruz’s amendment to it? Nope.
Cruz, Toomey file amendment to give Congress more power over Obama’s Iran deal
http://www.cruz.senate.gov/?id=2304&p=press_release
Don’t blame the entire Republican Senate. Blame McConnell (BTW...who Trump supported in 2014). So yes, Trump did have a direct roll in this (so yes Trump affect government policy by helping elect people including Hillary).
No...we knew about his dual/Canadian citizenship when he announced (after only being in the Senate less than one full term) for Pres.
I’m talking about his filing papers for his TX Senate run.
One doesn't exactly call it support when Graham elaborates that said person (Cruz) makes you sick, but not as sick as Trump. If that is love, I had rather be lonely.
Must proofread better. Tired.
It sayz absolutely nothing in regards to dual citizenship. Ted Cruz is a natural born U.S. citizen. Holding dual citizenship is not an issue.
Look, I'm a strict constitutionalists. The U.S. constitution is to be read literally, not figuratively. It is not a living, breathing document as some progressives would have folks believe...speaking of our supposed constitutional scholar president, Barack H. Obama.
Many current/former Jewish leaders in the house and senate hold dual citizenship with Israel. TO THIS DAY. It's never an issue until....oh lets say...election time, when someone attempts to cast doubt in the minds of voters.
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