Posted on 04/11/2016 5:58:45 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In “Through the Looking Glass,” the Queen tells Alice: “sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” She might have choked on her grits, however, at the thought of Ted Cruz becoming the Republican nominee. Until a few weeks ago he was low in the polls and loathed by the GOP establishment. Sen. Lindsey Graham joked about murdering him. But now, the impossible has happened: Cruz’s unlikely emergence as the favorite to beat Donald Trump. His transformative win in Wisconsin. And even his unthinkable endorsement by Graham.
Can Ted believe this is happening? And does he — or his party — really understand what it all means? The impossibility of this story begins with the very character of Ted Cruz. He has Cuban heritage but somehow wound up an evangelical. He is unquestionably a cultural conservative, yet that rhetorical flourish was honed at Ivy League schools. He later became defined as a tea party outsider, but he began his political career by working for George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign — an effort that backfired because, as he admitted later, he made far more enemies than friends. The question of likeability dogs him to this day.
A lot of critics have written unpleasant articles about his face. In fact, it’s hard to think of a candidate who has attracted such mean and spiteful commentary. For proof that he’s both normal and soft-centered, one only has to view footage of him killing time during a debate break by playing with his daughter. All the same, the man is no Marco Rubio. While Rubio looked like he ought to win and lost in spite of it, Cruz is winning in spite of even George W. Bush — a famously laid back man — reportedly saying “I just don’t like that guy.”
But, then again, Cruz likely never imagined that he was going to be the front-runner. He thought he’d be running the classic conservative outsider candidacy: win Iowa, win the South, monopolize the religious vote. He narrowly pulled off the first part, the rest went wrong. Trump performed better among Southerners and evangelicals, which led many commentators to assume that Cruz was on the way out.
But in this year of surreal turns, Cruz’s assumption that he’d be the second-ranked candidate actually helped him survive the Trump tsunami. While the other candidates were focusing on big primaries, his staff was quietly preparing victories in caucuses and working hard behind the scenes to turn popular vote losses into more delegates than expected — as happened in Louisiana.
This approach paid off big time in Colorado, where Cruz campaigners achieved a clean sweep of all 34 delegates selected at byzantine conventions.
Remember, this strategy was originally intended just to keep Cruz in contention against a mainstream candidate like Jeb Bush. But deployed against Donald Trump, in a year where the race is astonishingly close, it’s actually turned him into the only credible choice for the establishment.
For instance, I’m told that Cruz’s people had every intention from the very beginning of exploiting Rule 40(b) to his advantage. This rule stipulates that only a candidate who has won delegate majorities in at least eight states can be nominated. It could be used to disqualify John Kasich — perhaps leaving Cruz as the only lawful alternative to The Donald at the convention, presuming he himself is judged to have met the criteria.
But there is yet another unexpected twist: In their rush to beat Trump, the party elite may find itself elevating a man who is even more radical than the person they’re trying to beat.
Trump is rhetorically extreme but on paper quite moderate. His shifting views on abortion are, I’m sure, the product of never having thought very hard about the subject — and the occasional foray into anti-Muslim prejudice or the war over Christmas are cover for an instinctual liberalism.
Trump is for universal health care, protecting U.S. industry and withdrawing from world affairs. Cruz, by contrast, would be one of the most conservative men ever to head the GOP ticket. He favors the gold standard, rejects orthodoxy on climate change, and likes the flat tax. His foreign policy could be summed up as “whatever is best for America.” He would carpet bomb ISIS, but only because it is an imminent threat. Libya, he would have avoided.
The difference between Trump and Cruz is that Trump is just a populist. Cruz is motivated by philosophy — a constitutionalism that has a libertarian streak. For example, Cruz does not personally approve of marijuana use but would allow the states to legislate on it. And his opposition to National Security Agency data gathering, the use of torture and ethanol subsidies all attest to his willingness to take on big government.
They reflect the rugged individualism of a very individualist candidate, and point to the fundamental paradox of the Cruz candidacy. What has made it resilient and a bold contrast to Trump is also what could make it frightening to many voters: its cool, calculating stubbornness.
I’m not of the view that Trump has lost the nomination. On the contrary, he remains the front-runner. But presuming that Cruz does win the nomination, there will have to be a reckoning. The party will probably discover that it can’t force a running-mate or policy choices on a man who only ever does things his way.
Cruz may discover that while the party is happy to dump Trump, it’s not so happy to be dictated to by another maverick. Both party and candidate will find themselves on the receiving end of attacks by a Democratic National Committee overjoyed to run against an ideologue.
Cruz’s nomination would be a legacy of Trump’s candidacy, and the way that it messed up the primary fight. It would change the GOP’s problems but not end them. That, I fear, really is an impossible task.
That’s going a little far.
One is eligible.
One isn’t eligible.
That’s the only comparison.
Cruz is an useful idiot for the RNC
That is a fundamental truth. He would have been long gone, and we’d be fighting over whether refusing to vote for Rubio or Bush or whoever was in front would be a vote for Hillary, same as every 4 years.
LOL. And all this time we are being told he is the big GOPe "insider."
Are you for real?
The so-called conservative champion practices political cronyism just like a friggin Democrat would.
This country needs real change, not fake change.
Mr. Trump represents real change.
All the big guns are aimed at him not Ted Cruz.
You are entitled to your opinion, I don’t agree. I would favor Cruz over Trump, but am flexible enough to like them both. My heart says Trump will kick over the entire sandbox and I love that. My head says Cruz will methodically work to do many good things because he is a “worker”, whereas Trump is a BS artist. He shows none of the characteristics of those he pushes to become “apprentices” on his show. He seems to be born with the silver spoon, and doesn’t have the mettle to know when to take a defeat with grace, while planning for it not to happen again. JMO.... Like I said, I will vote for him if he is the nominee.
Trump for write in. Cruz cannot get anywhere near the White House. He’s the worst liberal running in both parties. I think he is a communist quite frankly.
It's boosting 34 delegates that does not sit well.
There useless at this point.
If Cruz & Trump had won 15 states each were neck and neck and Cruz was stealing delegates to beat Trump on the first vote Ted would look better. Instead he’s just tryign to change the Trump’s win rate since Florida.
Ted Cruz is not a fake, he is a genuine Bush sycophant.
I like how one Freeper puts it:
1. Cruz is the American revolution 2.0
2. Trump is the French revolution 2.0
It is more than obvious to me at this point that facts are absolutely irrelevant to the angry mob supporting Trump. It only makes them angrier. We find out tonight from naps coordinator that Cruz is no longer simply a globalist. Cruz is a communist!
I am quite sure we will find out next week which of his pets Cruz is having sex with from Trump supporters.
It is ideological savagery with no mooring or intellectual foundation.
But trump has been consistent. He has consistently attacked the most conservative rivals: Walker, Carson, Christie, Rubio and Cruz.
He has reserved his most hateful “liar” accusations for those who are most conservative.
He has not attacked Hillary with nearly the venom. Trump is tapping into public anger.
I get it. The French Revolutionary participants were mad as hell at the aristocracy.
It is fascinating and has some rational basis but it is obviously politically counterproductive.
Trump seeks to bully anyone who opposes him into submission.
As always, my thought is:
Come and take it!
Have you actually looked up his supreme court record? It is not nearly as hot and impressive as he makes it out to be. In fact, one could conclude that the guy is just another -surprise, surprise - slimy lawyer.
In his first case Frew v. Hawkins (1996) Cruz argued that Texas was not bound by a consent decree entered into by the Texas attorney general in a class action Medicaid case. Cruz tried to argue that state sovereignty rights afforded by the 11th Amendment barred the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Needless to say, states are bound, under the US Constitution by their obligations of contract and a consent decree is a contract recorded with the Court. The court ruled against him 9-0.
His next case was just as problematic, Dretke v. Haley (2004). Haley was convicted of stealing a calculator from a Walmart, a misdemeanor with a maximum prison sentence of 2 years. But Texas invoked the repeat offenders act and he was sentenced to 15 years. Some years later an attorney reviewed the record and appealed on the grounds that Texas had misapplied the repeat offenders act. Before the Supreme Court, Cruz argued that the Haley had waived any objection to his sentence by leaving it so long (Really!) and also argued that he was concerned about the impact of an adverse opinion in the Haley matter on other Texas cases.
Here is what transpired at oral argument:
J. Kennedy: You’ve conceded that this sentence is unlawful?”
Cruz: Yes.
Kennedy Well then, why are you here? Is there some rule that you can’t confess error in your state?
Cruz: No
Kennedy: Well, so a man does 15 years so you can vindicate your legal point in some other case? ... I just don’t understand why you don’t dismiss this case and move to lower the sentence.
Those are the values of your constitutional conservative sleezebag Lyin' Ted.
Is that you Jose Medellin?
I regret the time taken to respond to your post 11, because this post is totally foaming at the mouth delusional. A couple too many loanstars under your belt?
I don’t think that is the problem.
Jose Medellin is dead because Cruz defeated the Bush administration before the Supreme Court on the question of whether international law should trump Texas’ legal capacity to execute an illegal immigrant murder.
The Medellin case like so many other cases he won and others he fought for go to the core of a conservative character which ALL other candidates lack.
Cruz was not simply winning bankruptcy cases or some eminent domain case for the state of Texas— hint hint.
Cruz was winning states rights, gun rights, religious liberty cases.
If you want to stake your judicial superiority on the cross examination of Kennedy— go ahead. Kennedy is a lousy supreme court justice who has done little to advance the values embodied by the is forum Andy Jackson.
It is frankly absurd the lengths your side is willing to go to discredit someone who is more conservative than Reagan. I have looked at Cruz’s supreme court record and you are nowhere near putting a scratch in that record.
While I take your point, and it is a good point about power never decreasing once it as been granted, I see why the anti-federalist papers never took off. Brutus is an attrocious writer by comparison with Madison or Hamilton or Jay, whose writing styles were the equal of any man in any time and place. After a grossly grandiloquent introduction Brutus then raises rather abstract objections which lack the crispness, clarity, precision, and concreteness of the Federals authors. The latter you immediately get, wherever you start reading. This is turgid.
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