The MSM said the same thing about Ronnie in 1980. I was surprised out of my socks when Ronnie started sweeping on election night ... I was ecstatic.
The Media lied. They lied to us like dogs. They lied like dogs, lying on a rug with fleas. They are such scum, they are loathesome, only this time we have the transcripts of the Journolist (courtesy of our Tucker Carlson) and can see them lying and plotting to lie, pouring poison in our ears like the evil brother in Hamlet.
How were we to know in 1980 that RR would win huge, that he would blow out the Carter Communists and their MSM facilitators and agitprop men? I believed them. If Roger Mudd or Baba Wawa told me something, I assumed integrity and truth lay behind it. I believed the results of the push-polls, the edited interviews, the spun and slanted reports telling me what lowlife Hollywood trash Ronald Bedtime for Bonzo Reagan and his rigid, snooty wife were. They told me stuff, what did I know?
They sooooo lied!
So, you young and stupid and ready to get reloaded with the old Lie #43, Your Guy Can't Get Elected He's Too Extreme?
Go read your post to me.
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.