Posted on 03/07/2016 3:34:24 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Mitt Romney's speech against Donald Trump is not likely to win many converts. Romney's remarks will just further vindicate and entrench Trump supporters.
Romney, though a good man, is quintessentially GOP establishment and has shown, by his speech, that he still doesn't understand the role he and his colleagues have played in bringing about the Trump surge.
During campaign season, these guys always seem to get it. They profess to understand how destructive President Obama's agenda is, but once they're elected, they lose their will to fight, which makes many conservatives believe they didn't believe their own rhetoric in the first place.
I know, Republicans tell us that the GOP leadership has done all it can to stop Obama but there's only so much a congressional majority can do. That's also what they said about congressional minorities when they were a minority.
Regardless, they haven't presented their case to the American people with conviction during the past seven years, except in the runup to elections. They didn't point out Obama's evil intentions and often denounced those who did. They didn't rally around Ted Cruz, Mike Lee or a handful of others who tried to stymie Obama. Instead, they chose to ridicule and marginalize these fighters.
Even to this day, the establishment fails to understand the legitimate concerns millions of Americans have over illegal immigration.
Establishment types arrogantly and unfairly slander border hawks as nativists, suggesting their opposition to open borders is race-based.
It's not about race; it's about our national sovereignty, the rule of law, protecting jobs, protecting Americans against criminal elements and jihadis, and stanching an invasion of people who will further burden our welfare state -- not assimilate, not embrace the American idea -- and vote almost solely Democratic.
A sovereign nation must control its borders and encourage immigrants to assimilate and embrace the unique American experiment. But Democrats are for flooding the borders for all the wrong reasons, and large swaths of the Republican establishment have affirmatively aided and abetted them.
We've watched as Republicans have allowed many of Obama's budgets to sail through under the radar, on the pretense of just waiting for the next election. Our guys don't even talk about entitlement reform anymore, though they were telling us just a few years ago that we were about to go bankrupt.
The Republican Party has been so tone-deaf to these real concerns that some Republican voters are furious enough to have chosen a wildly flawed solution in Donald Trump. One person on Twitter said she is so disgusted she is going to vote Democratic for the first time in 40 years.
It is tragic that true conservatives, however, are being lumped in and punished for the betrayals of centrist Republicans. Trump supporters are adamant that no elected official escape the blame. Their solution is to burn the house down and rebuild it around Trump, even though they can't be sure what he'd do when elected.
People wonder why they would turn to someone like Trump. The GOP, after all, has stood for moral principles, manners and adult behavior, and Trump seems to exhibit none of those things. In many ways, he is the opposite of conservative principles, in demeanor, lifestyle and his personal conduct in the campaign.
But in their disgust at the Republican establishment, they are throwing out true conservatives and also certain conservative principles and values, as if all of conservatism has been tainted by a party that betrayed its base.
How else does it make sense that even valid, troubling criticisms of Trump seem to help him more than hurt him?
I think it's because this disaffected class of voters wants someone unorthodox enough to break the rules, someone brash enough not to be deterred by the niceties that have prevented establishment Republicans from distinguishing themselves from Obama in bold colors rather than pale pastels. They're seem not only not offended but invigorated by someone who'll hurl profanities and refuse to apologize even when he owes an apology, because they think it's going to take someone like that to resist pressure to betray them once he's elected.
And though the establishment has finally awakened to the intensity of the discontentment among the party rank and file, it still doesn't believe the angst is legitimate. The establishment is still in bitter denial and wouldn't support a person advocating many of Trump's ideas even if he were a paragon of moral rectitude.
If establishment Republicans were the least bit repentant about their betrayals, truly believed in the conservative principles embodied in their party's platform and were realistic about stopping Trump, they'd quit posturing and unite behind Ted Cruz.
For the way to defeat Donald Trump is not to deny him a majority and steal the nomination from him at the convention; that really would be the end of the party. It is to embrace the closest thing to a Reagan conservative since Ronald Reagan, before it's too late. But truth be told, they probably hate Cruz worse than they hate Trump.
I wish Trump supporters would consider this when they wrongly lump Cruz in with the establishment, and I wish they'd simmer down long enough to recognize that Cruz represents the answer to their complaints far more than Trump -- and with none of the baggage.
Be that as it may, Cruz got less votes in TX than any other candidate in history. Spin that one!
Ahem.....are these not your words....and is Ted Cruz not an elected official?
“Agree about insanity that is why I am not voting for an elected official,”
“Why the hell can’t the Cruz voters see that Cruz is now part of the establishment and open borders? Instead they deny it as if he were God because he quotes scripture.”
It sounds to me, from your own words, that you won’t vote for Ted Cruz.
I didn't say that YOU said that you wouldn't vote for Trump, so stop twisting my words!
I didn't say, imply, or do boo to "twist" your words. I wouldn't touch your words with a 10-foot I-beam. Damn, you're annoying -- putting words in my mouth! And then bitching that that's what *I* did! You must be a seminar Mau-Mau, you taking classes from old, lying Democrats at Trump Central? (Yes, that is ascription, and by God you deserve it!)
Don't bother to reply. I won't be listening or reading. You're done. sneck!
Huh? Care to qualify that? The guys he beat all got fewer votes than he did -- by definition. In the primary, in the senatorial primary, in the general .... all true. What did you have in mind?
I can’t get over how much this man lies!!
You are SO far off base I HAVE to break it down for you, just so you understand how misbegotten your analysis is.
First, I'm not "young." Indeed, I've been a FReeper two years longer than you. I participated in Reagan's first election; I didn't read about it.
Next, our family business is media relations, and has been in one form or another for twenty years.
I KNOW how it's done. I know not only that the media lies, but HOW they'll lie to maintain plausible deniability. I've dissected Jane Mayer articles to show how she'll bracket an unattributed quote with attributed quotes to give the casual reader the impression the central quote was attributed, too.
You, my FRiend, have only scratched the surface of media duplicity as it is currently practiced.
Ronald Reagan taught media a lesson. It's one they never forgot, and have no intention of ever repeating. Ever since Reagan, media has treated news, particularly political news, like an ad campaign. Making the observation that "they lie" is as insightful as noticing tv has a lot of commercials; it doesn't BEGIN to plumb the depths of the "plan" involved in those commercials.
The thing that makes Trump electable and Cruz not, is their respective abilities to deal with the adversarial press. And make no mistake, the press is and has been adversarial to every republican candidate and president since at least Nixon. Even when a Republican has managed to get elected, his administration has been constantly dogged by a media looking to replay "Watergate."
Trump has demonstrated his skill at getting through the press, despite their best efforts, while Cruz is totally at their mercy. Indeed, Cruz was a non-entity until some started to understand he was the only candidate that could seriously erode Trump's support. Even so, there's still damn little that gets out of Cruz's "message" by way of the popular press.
Trump on the other hand, IS the national conversation, because he has been able to frame his candidacy AS news. He's been "playing" the media since day one against a field of contenders whose most junior member far outstrips his experience with elective office simply because he's the master of the conduit they ALL use to reach the voters.
If Cruz were to win the Republican nomination, you can rest assured life will go back to business as usual, where even if he manages to capitalize on the anti-establishment mood to eek out a win against Hillary he'll spend most of his Presidency trying to beat back attempts to Watergate him.
In summation, we have only one candidate with a proven ability to effectively neutralize the unenumerated fourth branch of government (the press), and that candidate is Donald Trump.
He got fewere votes than previous canddiates from Texas. There have been threads about this - perhaps you missed them.
Nobody in Texas believes that? Have you traveled the entire state and asked? I didn’t think so. You mean in your little corner of the world. So, here’s a great video for you to prove what a liar your candidate really is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwIHJhtTSLg
Why does he have sealed records?
Took the words right out of my mouth! What is David smoking? I swear, people are losing their minds.
Well, duh, because he has something to hide - that’s why. Just like Obama did.
Sorry, I put no weight on your video, obviously produced by the Trump campaign -- there are at least three of those out there right now, stuff he's paid people to knock together on short notice, all of which bash hell out of Ted Cruz without throwing any weight on Trump: Trump's associations, his positions, his business history. Just an incessant blare of LIARLIARLIAR, just like Trump himself. LIARLIARLIARNASTYGUY.
You actually believe campaign crap like that? Well, eat up -- you can have my share when you're done.
Nobody in Texas believes that? Have you traveled the entire state and asked? I didn’t think so.
Oh, please -- that is such junior-high debate-class rodomontade. Try the Texas FR board.
"Have you traveled the entire state and asked?" <Snort!> What b.s.! What do I look like, the Traveling Wilburys?
If you spent as much effort playing the stock market as you do fine-tuning your snark, you'd be a billionaire by now.
I don’t give a sh** if you put weight in the video or not - I didn’t make it. You, like the others, have your heads stuck in the sand when it comes to Cruz and his lies. He is lying - plain and simple. If you can’t see that, then you are beyond help. Some people like to be victims of false prophets, and I guess you are no exception. Cruz is a lying, cheating, dirty politician.
As far as I know, every rally for Cruz sets a record for a Cruz rally at that location.
I don't watch much teevee, so I couldn't comment on ratings. If you are saying more people watch the Donald, people love controversy and drama, it is why the Kardashians are still on the tube. They'd watch two moths fight to lay eggs on a wool rag. TV ratings don't equal votes, or Obama wouldn't have been elected.
I don't go to rallies myself, but I know how I will vote.
What is this nonsense? Does Cruz BELIEVE THIS?
http://aattp.org/flashback-ra fael-cruz-calls-son-ted-cruz-an-anointed-king-responsible-for-the-end-time-transfer-of-wealth/
HE WANTS TO CUT SENIOR’S SOCIAL SECURITY
CRUZ NEVER LIKED OR TRUSTED
Alumni, roommates, law clerks, former staffers in the George W. Bush campaign and White House (and the president himself), members of Congress and others who have known Cruz — lots and lots of people — consider him socially awkward, nasty, dishonesty
httpest, a blatant apple-polisher and all-around creepy guy. You can write off a few of these critics as jealous of his success, or liberal antagonists, but all of them? There is something badly amiss here. Cruz, who so obviously lacks emotional intelligence, cannot recognize it, but those closest to him surely must see that something is awry...
SELDOM REPORTED TO WORK FOR THE JOB HE WAS ELECTED TO DO
Ted Cruz the senator: Heard but not seen
The Texas Republican seriously lags most of his colleagues in attending hearings and casting votes.
Ted Cruz came to Washington two-and-a-half years ago pledging to be the anti-senator. But he’s been more like the no-show senator.
The Texas Republican seriously lags most of his colleagues in attending hearings and casting votes in what has been a Senate career long on rhetoric and short on Senate business.
He’s skipped the vast majority of Armed Services Committee hearings, is below-average in attendance on his other major committees and ranks 97th during the first three months of this year in showing up for roll call votes on the Senate floor. ... -Read more: Ted Cruz the senator: Heard but not seen
IS THIS GUY BORN IN CANADA WHO WANTS TO CUT SOCIAL SECURITY WHAT YOU WANT TO GO UP AGAINST HILLARY??
GO AHEAD AND MAKE HIM THE NOMINEE..HILLARY WILL TEAR HIM APART ON HIS RECORD AND VIEW ON SS
A “conservative” on a conservative website promoting the expansion of welfare programs. Now I’ve seen everything.
nicely said and spot on.
One nutjob liberal that, if Tejas was the bastion of freedom and conservatism that everyone says it is, she never would have been elected in the first place. And even if she HAD been elected, she would have been tarred & feathered on short order, or at least elected OUT of office at the first opportunity.
She is but one example - look at the lesbo mayor that wanted preacher's sermons. That's another. And what about electing people like Dubya, who may not be liberal, but is/was certainly no Conservative.
whats your point
Tejas is no better than any other state when it comes to freedom or Conservatism, despite claims to the contrary.
We of course ca throw that example around what about former Congressman William Pitts from Lancaster Pa. By no stretch of the imagination is the areas around Lancaster or Philly conservative, yet Pitts won. Just because of a handful of elected officials, who may happen to be very skilled at politicking get elected in areas that do not naturally support your views does not discount that those are your views.
Say what you will, but Barrack Obama is a very gifted speaker, of course I have grown up listening to people like Reagan, Rush, and others. I personally saw the socialism through the words. So never bought into the Hope and Change, and that is also why I am not buying into the Making America Great Again mantra of Donald Trump.
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