Leno has his crap preloaded (RAT talking points), Cruz had to think fast totally cold and make sure not to have a slip up.
He accomplished that perfectly, he did no damage to himself.
If he had gone into long winded answers, Leno would have cut him off more and made his answers look disjointed.
Don't forget, he was on Leno's field and did not lose to him.
I'll give him a honest A.
If I was allowing for "experience", I'd give Sen. Cruz at least an A-. But, I am not making that allowance. Life's tough and politics is cruel & unforgiving, especially to conservatives in 2013.
Leno has his crap preloaded (RAT talking points), Cruz had to think fast totally cold and make sure not to have a slip up.
Cruz should have been equally prepped or better. Surely he should not have been "cold". After all, this stuff is his pidgin and his life, now. Conservative pols MUST realize all this when going into these opportunities.
He accomplished that perfectly, he did no damage to himself.
I concur that he made no serious gaffes or mistakes -- I just think he could have been stronger in some areas. Again, that's with 20/20 hindsight and not myself being in the hotseat, as I said.
If he had gone into long winded answers, Leno would have cut him off more and made his answers look disjointed.
Well, what I was trying to list there were several different usable counterpoints, any of which can be made in 2, maybe 3 sentences. By no means should Cruz or anyone else try to cram them all into one long answer. That said... one thing I often see with conservatives in situations like this is that they don't quite seem to have mastered the art of how to get their point across and not let themselves be cut off.
Don't forget, he was on Leno's field and did not lose to him.
Oh, I agree, but to get an "A" from me, Cruz has to make that field his own. Even Ron Paul, while I disagree with him sometimes on substance, on occasion manages to accomplish that "field taking" on Leno. A lot of that is, again, experience, but I can hope Sen. Cruz is a fast learner. :-)
I ran for school committee in a moonbat town, and participated in many hostile interviews and debates. I can tell you that doing hostile interviews well is very, very difficult to do. That's why Democraps avoid Fox.
The reason is because to do an interview well, you don't want to be "the accused," constantly rebutting antagonistic questions. You also want to push your own agenda, expose the agenda of the accuser, and come across as friendly. On top of that, you want to make your answers brief and memorable.
I couldn't do it. The best I could do was brush the hostile questions aside and push my own agenda.
I've seen Cruz handle several hostile interviews masterfully, accomplishing all of these goals.
Cruz is as intelligent as Dershowitz said.
Lefturdjay asked Sen. Cruz about Obamacare and then interrupted THREE SEPARATE TIMES when Cruz started to answer the question.
This is a typical leftist tactic when conservatives are interviewed by fifth-column media buttboys and whores.
The Tonight Show appearance was deliberately set up as a hit on Cruz, trying to get him to say something to use against him while not letting him lay out the conservative plan. Anything on the networks should be suspected as supporting treason by leftists.