Posted on 03/31/2016 1:28:47 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
I got to meet Texas Sen. Ted Cruz last week in New York City.
Normally after eyeballing a public figure up close, you report back to friends that, “he’s a lot different in person” – shorter or taller, friendlier or unfriendlier, aloof or “really down-to earth.”
Not so with Cruz.
That impressed me.
Besides being, OK, slightly smaller and significantly better looking in person than on TV, the Ted Cruz I saw and briefly spoke with at an off-the-record sit down at my old political club in Manhattan was the exact same one I’ve been watching in action for the past several years. He was sincere, unwavering, driven and humorless, with that man-on-a-mission feel we saw in the primary debates.
Cruz clearly isn’t a New York politician. He demeanor screams, “Bible Belt” (he’s the son of a baptist minister) and he’s far too smooth to be a Northeast politician. New Yorkers have an aversion to slicksters, and Cruz undeniably lends himself to that description. He’s also more conservative than most Republicans in these parts, not necessarily in what he believes, but in what he chooses to emphasize. There are plenty of socially conservative Republicans in New York, but they rarely lead with it.
Cruz goes there.
The biggest knock on Cruz to most Americans is that he was willing to shut down the federal government over the debt limit a couple of years back. A lot of very smart people called that reckless, but in fairness to Cruz, so is adding hundreds of billions of dollars in red ink to our already suicidal $19 trillion debt load. It was a bit of brinksmanship I personally didn’t mind....
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
And you don’t think people have a problem with Trump attacking his opponents menstrual cycles and calling their wives ugly he’s a vulgar juvenile man who is been a liberal his entire life until about 15 minutes ago and he doesn’t have a chance in the general ‘s approval rating among women alone is down to less than 30%
I didn’t say people didn’t have a problem with it. You mistake me. I just don’t think it’s likely we can win in 2016 and 2020 (and probably beyond).
Anyone who thinks people are buying what Ted Cruz is selling has a problem filtering reality.
Your post is unintelligible.
I think in Wisconsin we are about to see a lot more people buying what Cruz is selling than what Trump is selling.
Trump can waive red meat, when he talks about making Mexico pay for a wall and forcing companies to bring factories back to ‘Merika! But he advocated higher taxes 2 days ago, praises the Canadian socialized medicine system every chance he gets and says that he likes, Obamacare’s Individual mandate. If you don’t think those positions will be played on continuous loop by the Democrats to suppress Republican turnout, then you’re not in touch with reality.
Trump promises to “shake things up” while at the same time, saying that he can make the most awesome deals with Nancy Pelosi. And he promises to build a wall, one with a gateway so he can continue employing Rwandan teenagers at his club in Florida no doubt, and his supporters start chanting “Get’er done.” The problem is, those who think that immigration and fighting ISIS aren’t the only problems we have are paying attention to the downright crazy stuff that just keeps pouring out of Trump’s cake hole. 20 points up, to 10 points down in Wisconsin is not a good sign for the Donald. And even if he squeaks out a nomination, polls consistently show him getting trounced by Hillary.
I don’t doubt it. But I take it from another angle: there’s almost no way the GOP can win in 2016 and 2020, no matter who the candidates are. The landscape has changed so much. Liberals have advanced politically and culturally on many fronts. Conservatives haven’t advanced on many fronts at all.
Wisconsin may go to Cruz, I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I find it absurd that any adult can seriously think a guy like Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio (or anyone, really) is going to lead us in a conservative 21st century renaissance.
I’m thinking way ahead. The liberal triumphs will endure for decades, until they can’t be sustained anymore. I’m 48. They will outlast me. For he next half century, we should just take what we can get. 10% of the conservative agenda beats 0%.
I’m not hopeful about the future.
Given the current innuendo circulating, that is probably not a good choice of words if you're a Cruz fan.
The future didn’t like bright in 1980 either, but the people chose a real conservative to get us out. We need to chose someone with core values that people can respect. That’s missing from Trump.
Well according to my research, the last brokered Republican convention was Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. He was a little short on delegates and obviously prevailed. Nixon and Ford were both short too on but won on the first ballot so were not brokered. Looks like the last time the Republican candidate with the most delegates(or votes) who didn’t go on to win the nomination was in 1860 when Lincoln won the nomination, after which we were plunged into civil war. So denying the candidate with the most delegates the nomination is almost unheard of. It was probably done in 1860 in the lead up to The Civil War, and a symptom of a deeply divided nation. Kind of sounds eerily like today.
I’d like to believe it, but I’d have to believe so much of what I know is not true to come to that conclusion.
It’s the only thing that’s going to save us.
Just voting for who we think is going to win (which is really not predictable) is not a winning strategy. That’s what the GOPe does every single election year, and how’s that working?
If you have core conservative values, you shouldn’t compromise them.
Have enough faith in your core principles to not be afraid to vote for who is going to be best for this country, regardless of what you think the opposing party and independents are going to think of them.
I have faith in my principles. I just see broad, systemic defects in the GOP’s approach to communicating effectively with voters. I don’t have faith in the GOP, and I don’t have faith in the voters.
Since the GOP is the best shot at advancing conservative goals, and since they are chronically inept and ineffective (even when they win), I don’t see much of a reason to be optimistic.
Focus on the man, not the party. The GOP doesn’t rule Ted, despite the nonsense being spewed here.
I ignore the party. That’s why I like Cruz. He called McConnell a liar (because he and the the other GOPe lied to their own voters) and fought the good fight when NOBODY was behind him except his own voters.
The GOP has given us Dole, McCain, and Romney. But they’re running away from and they hate Cruz. They’re only coming to him as a last resort. That’s all I need to know.
Look at Cruz’s record.
Well that’s another thing. I have no problem with most of what Cruz says. I just don’t believe a syllable of it. I find his presentation to be very defective. He’s selling big picture stuff, but isn’t retail. I’d vote for him, but with zero enthusiasm and no expectation he would come close to winning.
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