Jennifer Rubin: Let Rand Paul and Ted Cruz duke it out

The Washington Post's Right Turn Blog ^ | March 25, 2015 | Jennifer Rubin

[2ndDivisionVet]

Somewhere former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are having a good laugh. “The onetime friendship between Sens. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul has grown frosty as they both vie to become the leading conservative in the 2016 GOP presidential primary,” the Hill reports. “The Kentucky senator stepped on his Texas colleague’s campaign rollout this week by questioning his electability, a move that Cruz’s allies saw as a deliberate attempt to distract from his message.” Well, duh. This is a contest after all. Did Cruz expect his opponents to lay off?

Paul says Cruz has no appeal outside the party. Cruz says Paul’s foreign policy is unacceptable to most Republicans. Cruz is nearly universally loathed by colleagues while Paul gets along on a personal level with Republican senators and has cultivated a friendship with the Senate majority leader. Cruz has tried to appeal to Paul voters by championing legislation designed to hamstring the National Security Agency; Paul has tried to assure Cruz voters that he is not an isolationist. Each is right about the other: Paul is too dovish, Cruz too confrontational and obnoxious. That is why both are in single digits in national and many early state polls.

Dual front-runners Bush and Walker are banking on Paul, Cruz, Rick Santorum, Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee pummeling one another so they don’t have to and dividing up the vote so they remain above the fray....

[2ndDivisionVet]

Sounds like she's transferred all of her PDS Palin hate onto Ted Cruz.

[MichaelCorleone]

This is all wishful thinking, or in in Jennifer’s case, wishful feeling. To say Rubin ‘thinks’ may be a bit of a stretch.

[onyx]

I refuse to read her vicious ventings.

She’s nothing to me and nothing to most conservatives either.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Other columnists, some really “JV grade”, have already come up with all the lame crap she was gonna say.

[Dqban22]

Liberals are scare

Ted Cruz TV Speech declaring his Candidacy march 23 2015

George Will said of Cruz: “a candidate as good as it gets" .

A Harvard Law graduate whom professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz once described as “off-the-chart brilliant,” Cruz’s intelligence should never be underestimated.

God’s blessing has been on America from the very beginning of this nation and I believe God isn’t done with America yet. I believe in you. I believe in the power of millions of courageous conservatives rising up to reignite the promise of America. And that is why today, I am announcing that I am running for president of the United States.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkzqv1pNnq4

"It is a time for truth. It is a time for liberty. It is a time to reclaim the constitution of the United States."

Now That Ted Cruz has Declared His Candidacy- You Ever Seen the Guy's Resume?

Reaganite Republican ^ | 23 March 2015 | Reaganite Republican

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3270929/posts

[grania]

Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have already been described as Friendemies. I wouldn't be at all upset if voters decided to vote in the Republican primary and decide that the only two choices that understand what voters want are Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.

It could mean a Cruz/Paul ticket as the best way to stop the backstabbers. I can't imagine hillary and whoever she has to choose from for VP beating that combination.

Anti-Paulistas, lighten up. It just might be the best way to relegate the GOP backstabbing elite to the trash heap of history's has-beens....where they belong.

[SoConPubbie]

Ted Cruz Ping!

If you want on/off this ping list, please let me know.

Please beware, this is a high-volume ping list!

CRUZ or LOSE!

CRUZ or LOSE!

[SaraJohnson]

She sure hopes Rand and Ted do each other in so her favorite RINO can make it in.

Really, she wants Hillary because Jeb and Walker are not beating her. This Rubin gal is a leftist.

[ansel12]

Rand is too rino and too much of a floundering light weight, to be thinking about being president.

[conservativejoy]

Paul’s foreign policy positions would be disasterous. If we survive our current peril, we need someone who will again embrace our allies and scare the beJesus out of our enemies.

[ansel12]

I think this shows how stupid Rand Paul is, and ignorant about the military.

He sounds totally clueless and floundering here.

He also criticized President Obama’s decision to send some 3,000 military members to West Africa. “You also have to be concerned about 3,000 soldiers getting back on a ship. Where is disease most transmittable? When you’re in a very close confines on a ship, we all know about cruises and how they get these diarrhea viruses that are transmitted very easily,” he said. “Can you imagine if a whole ship full of our soldiers catch Ebola?”

[SunkenCiv]

• Paul: We probably can't get rid of 'Obamacare'
• Paul: We probably can't get rid of 'Obamacare' - [Sep. 21, 2013 9:56 PM EDT ]
• Paul: 'Difficult to turn the clock back' on O-Care
• Rand Paul: GOP 'probably can't defeat' Obamacare
• Rand Paul on abortion: "We're not changing any of the laws until the country is persuaded otherwise"
• Sen. Paul: 'We're Not Changing Any' Abortion 'Laws Until the Country is Persuaded Otherwise'

Rand Paul On Shutdown: "Even Though It Appeared I Was Participating In It, It Was A Dumb Idea"

I said throughout the whole battle that shutting down the government was a dumb idea. Even though it did appear as if I was participating in it, I said it was a dumb idea. And the reason I voted for it, though, is that it's a conundrum. Here's the conundrum. We have a $17 trillion debt and people at home tell me you can't give the president a blank check. We just can't keep raising the debt ceiling without conditions. So unconditionally raising the debt ceiling, nobody at home wants me to vote for that and I can't vote for that. But the conundrum is if I don't we do approach these deadlines. So there is an impasse. In 2011, though, we had this impasse and the president did negotiate. We got the sequester. If we were to extend the sequester from discretionary spending to all the entitlements we would actually fix our problem within a few years.

[Posted on 11/19/2013 12:16:51 PM by Third Person]

• Rand Paul: I think Republicans may have over-emphasized voter fraud
• Rand Paul: Republicans Need to Soften on Social Issues

Rand Paul: Time for GOP to soften war stance

...by softening its edge on some volatile social issues and altering its image as the party always seemingly "eager to go to war... We do need to expand the party and grow the party and that does mean that we don't always all agree on every issue" ... the party needs to become more welcoming to individuals who disagree with basic Republican doctrine on emotional social issues such as gay marriage... "We're going to have to be a little hands off on some of these issues ... and get people into the party," Paul said.

[Posted on 01/31/2013 5:08:50 PM PST by xzins]

• Rand Paul Wants Bigger GOP: 'You Go to a Republican Event and It's All White People'
• (Rand) Paul: GOP Needs to 'Look Like the Rest of America' to Win Again (again)
• Rand Paul slams Cliven Bundy's racist rant
• Rand Paul: Bundy's racist remarks are 'offensive'
• Rand Paul: I'm Open to Voting for Immigration Bill
• Paul: Still hope for immigration reform this year

Rand Paul's immigration speech

...The Republican Party must embrace more legal immigration.

Unfortunately, like many of the major debates in Washington, immigration has become a stalemate-where both sides are imprisoned by their own rhetoric or attachment to sacred cows that prevent the possibility of a balanced solution.

Immigration Reform will not occur until Conservative Republicans, like myself, become part of the solution. I am here today to begin that conversation.

Let's start that conversation by acknowledging we aren't going to deport 12 million illegal immigrants.

If you wish to work, if you wish to live and work in America, then we will find a place for you...

This is where prudence, compassion and thrift all point us toward the same goal: bringing these workers out of the shadows and into being taxpaying members of society.

Imagine 12 million people who are already here coming out of the shadows to become new taxpayers.12 million more people assimilating into society. 12 million more people being productive contributors.

[Posted on 03/19/2013 7:04:07 AM PDT by Perdogg]

---

Rand Paul calls on conservatives to embrace immigration reform

Latinos, should be a natural constituency for the party, Paul argued, but "Republicans have pushed them away with harsh rhetoric over immigration." ...he would create a bipartisan panel to determine how many visas should be granted for workers already in the United States and those who might follow... [and the buried lead] "Imagine 12 million people who are already here coming out of the shadows to become new taxpayers...

[Posted on 04/21/2013 1:52:42 PM PDT by SoConPubbie]

---

[but he's not in favor of amnesty, snicker, definition of is is]

• Rand Paul: End 'welfare' to Israel
• Rand Paul: Iran Wants Nukes Because It "Feels Threatened"
• Rand stands with Obama and Kerry on Iran
• Rand Paul: I don't think we should impose new Iran sanctions while negotiations are ongoing
• Rand Paul: Let's get this straight -- I'm not for containing Iran
• Rand Paul stands alone against Senate's 'preemptive war' resolution for Iran [Sept 2014]
• Rand Paul: It's America's Fault
• Rand Paul clarifies: No containment on Iran
• Rand Paul Calls for a Formal Declaration of War Against ISIS
• Sec. of State Kerry: U.S. Not Responsible for Chaos in Iraq, Libya
• NANCY PELOSI: IRAQ IS NOT OUR RESPONSIBILITY
• Paul Blames Iraq Crisis on Bush Administration
• Rand Paul Defends Obama Against Dick Cheney
• Rand Paul Defends President Obama From Dick Cheney
• Casting a Paul on American Strength: In defense and foreign policy, Rand Paul is a menace.

Rand Slams Congress for Funding Egypt's Generals: 'How Does Your Conscience Feel Now?'

Sen. Rand Paul is hammering his fellow senators for keeping billions in financial aid flowing to Egypt's military -- even as Cairo's security forces massacre anti-government activists. [by "anti-government activists" is meant church-burning Christian-murdering jihadists]

[Posted on 08/15/2013 5:44:10 PM PDT by Hoodat]

[conservativejoy]

When it comes to military, national security, and foreign policy Rand Paul is an embarassmentf. I’m not even sure he’s equipped to be in the Senate, much less the Presidency.

[ansel12]

I’m still OK with him as a senator so far, and he is far better than who he was running against.

He is a joke as a presidential type pretender though.

[stephenjohnbanker]

WaPo is for kitty litter only.

[SaraJohnson]

That’s for sure.

[ek_hornbeck]

Jennifer Rubin is just a cheerleader for the GOP establishment and probably a Karl Rove mouthpiece, she ends her hit (and miss) piece by talking about the “conservative accomplishments” of Jeb Bush.