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The Rough Math Facing Ted Cruz
San Diego Union-Triune ^ | April 2, 2015 | George Will

Posted on 04/02/2015 9:28:25 AM PDT by Fiji Hill

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was born in 1970, six years after events refuted a theory on which he is wagering his candidacy. The 1964 theory was that many millions of conservatives abstained from voting because the GOP did not nominate sufficiently deep-dyed conservatives. So if in 1964 the party would choose someone like Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, hitherto dormant conservatives would join the electorate in numbers sufficient for victory.

This theory was slain by a fact — actually, 15,951,378 facts. That was the difference between the 43,129,566 votes President Lyndon Johnson received and the 27,178,188 that Goldwater got in winning six states.

The sensible reason for nominating Goldwater was not because he could win: As Goldwater understood, Americans still recovering from the Kennedy assassination were not going to have a third president in 14 months. The realistic reason was to turn the GOP into a conservative weapon for a future assault on the ramparts of power...

Today, however, there is no need to nominate Cruz in order to make the GOP conservative.... When Jeb Bush, the most conservative governor of a large state since Ronald Reagan...is called a threat to conservatism, Republicans are with Alice in Wonderland.

(Excerpt) Read more at utsandiego.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2016; cruz; floriduh; georgewill; georgewill4dnc; georgewill4libs; gope; jebbush; rinogeorgewill; rinos4bush
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To: EternalVigilance

The Beltway pundits and commentators can only view the world from inside the Beltway. They have no idea what is going on in fly-over country.

That is why so many of them failed to see the 2010 and 2014 Democrat shellackings.

The problem is that those pundits and commentators have created their own elite club and feed off each other.


21 posted on 04/02/2015 9:45:49 AM PDT by TomGuy
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To: GeronL

Has to be the Potomac water they drink in DC!


22 posted on 04/02/2015 9:46:34 AM PDT by gr8eman (Don't waste your energy trying to understand commies. Use it to defeat them!)
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To: Fiji Hill

Poor poor George Will.

A mind is a terrible thing to lose.


23 posted on 04/02/2015 9:46:40 AM PDT by Diogenesis ("When a crime is unpunished, the world is unbalanced.")
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To: TomGuy
I'll see George Will's 15,951,378 facts from 1964 and raise him 8,423,115 facts from 1980 and 16,878,120 facts from 1984, Reagan's margins over Carter and Mondale, respectively.

There is nobody in the GOP who could have beaten LBJ in 1964 as it was largely a sympathy vote for JFK, whose assassination was less than one year old at the time. LBJ had wrapped himself in the JFK coffin flag extremely well, so the comparison to 1984 is even better. Reagan was running for a second term; JFK was running for a second term.

JFK had really been assassinated less than a year before whereas Reagan's attempted assassination was nearly four years old and had faded from the public mind.

Don't forget also that one of JFK's final acts as president was to sign a massive tax cut which was just kicking in full steam by the fall of 1964.

24 posted on 04/02/2015 9:49:44 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: TomGuy

Compared to hyperliberal George Will,
Juan Williams, demander that Americans eat ‘dog food’
for Obama, is more conservative.


25 posted on 04/02/2015 9:50:18 AM PDT by Diogenesis ("When a crime is unpunished, the world is unbalanced.")
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To: Fiji Hill; stephenjohnbanker; fieldmarshaldj; BillyBoy
When Jeb Bush, the most conservative governor of a large state since Ronald Reagan...is called a threat to conservatism, Republicans are with Alice in Wonderland.

Most of the "large state" (meaning top 5 or so I guess) Governors have been rank liberals or RINOs lately, so that's hardly a meaningful title. Jeb was a pretty good Governor overall. But anyone who views Jeb as a conservative, especially after he's been moving left since leaving office, has something wrong with their barometer. The Bushes have never been conservatives, they are a NE RINO family that moved south. Ronald Reagan's biggest mistake was choosing HW as VP.

26 posted on 04/02/2015 9:52:04 AM PDT by Impy (They pull a knife, you pull a gun. That's the CHICAGO WAY, and that's how you beat the rats!)
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To: Fiji Hill

George Will, another member of The Ministry Of Propaganda, doing his bit for The Cheap Labor Express to convince GOP voters that Jebster is a conservative when he is clearly NOT.

If the RNC succeeds in nominating this Democrat in an R jersey he will lose worse than McCain, in fact I predict he will lose worse than Goldwater and the GOP will become extinct in 5 years.

A party that is at war with its own voters cannot last.

GOP-RIP


27 posted on 04/02/2015 9:52:12 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Fiji Hill

“...Jeb Bush, the most conservative governor of a large state since Ronald Reagan...”

George Will - Did you lose something?

Oh yeah, my respect.


28 posted on 04/02/2015 9:54:24 AM PDT by kidd
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To: Fiji Hill
Will, at best, is very confused about what happened in 1964. Having lived through it, I will assure all that Goldwater did not lose for the reasons he suggests. Goldwater had overtaken JFK in some of the polls, before Kennedy was assassinated. What followed that is more complex, by far, than what Will suggests.

But here is the yet more essential point. For those of us who would retain the America vouchsafed to the next generation in the 1780s, it is not about victory for a particular personality; not about the quest for power or glory. Even a losing campaign that helps educate for a more hopeful future, is infinitely preferable to the election of one who pretends to serve, but constantly retreats in the face of the ongoing Collectivist assault.

In that reality, the Goldwater campaign was at least a partial success. It clearly paved the way for the Reagan "revolution." It was Reagan's beautiful TV address for Goldwater, which introduced Reagan as a serious force on the American political scene.

At worst, Will's pitch is an effort to sell surrender as a new pragmatism.

William Flax

29 posted on 04/02/2015 9:54:53 AM PDT by Ohioan
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To: Vigilanteman

Your comments are apt. Note my post #29.


30 posted on 04/02/2015 9:57:42 AM PDT by Ohioan
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To: Vigilanteman

Thank you! All these pundits proclaiming Ted Cruz can’t win conveniently forget that Ronald Reagan also “couldn’t win.” But he did. Twice.


31 posted on 04/02/2015 10:00:54 AM PDT by fatnotlazy
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To: Fiji Hill

They can play with their charts, whiteboards, and calculators all they want...didn’t do any good with McCain, or Romney, and it won’t do them any better this time.

Someone who can get people to turn out and vote in large numbers is the key. We haven’t had a true conservative run in so long it will be quite refreshing to vote for someone who cares about the people, and the country, for a change.

As Cruz gains popularity you’ll be hearing a lot of “me too’s” coming from the GOPe wannabes, and plenty of bashing from the left and the press...sure signs that Cruz has them plenty worried.


32 posted on 04/02/2015 10:03:41 AM PDT by FrankR (They will become our ultimate masters the day we surrender the 2nd Amendment.)
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To: Fiji Hill

It’s George Will. What do you expect a Liberal Elitist in sheep’s clothing to say? He never accepted Reagan as President either.


33 posted on 04/02/2015 10:09:59 AM PDT by Steamburg (Other people's money is the only language a politician respects)
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To: Signalman
For someone who “doesn’t have a chance of becoming president”, the media have have sure wasted a truckload of printer ink on the hundreds of articles describing how Ted “doesn’t have a chance of becoming president”.

Good point!

The question is whether the fifth-column media are getting their talking points from the Demonicrats or from the RINOs.

34 posted on 04/02/2015 10:12:50 AM PDT by Carl Vehse
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To: Fiji Hill

“When Jeb Bush, the most conservative governor of a large state since Ronald Reagan.”

I guess Will has started partaking of medicinal marijuana...

Common Core
Open borders
180 degree turn on RFRA just this morning.

This is conservative?


35 posted on 04/02/2015 10:15:30 AM PDT by DemforBush (Ex-Democrat, and NotforJeb. Just so we're clear.)
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To: SharpRightTurn

GOP establishment members like Will always make a point of mentioning Goldwater’s election results and not mentioning Reagan’s election results. It just goes to show that you cannot trust a “conservative” like Will to be honest. This is the guy who hosted a dinner for Obama and other GOP-E “conservatives” and came away impressed with him. If these guys are so smart, why did it take them so long to figure out what Obama really is? I believe people like Will and the rest of the DC Uniparty establishment are completely out of touch with Americans. They have no clue how people outside the Beltway think and don’t care to learn.


36 posted on 04/02/2015 10:16:36 AM PDT by jospehm20
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To: Impy; Fiji Hill; stephenjohnbanker; fieldmarshaldj; BillyBoy

” The Bushes have never been conservatives, they are a NE RINO family that moved south.”

Modern day carpetbaggers. We have one in AZ who was just elected. Martha McSally.


37 posted on 04/02/2015 10:17:09 AM PDT by stephenjohnbanker (My Batting Average( 1,000) (GOPe is that easy to read))
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To: Carl Vehse

In DC that question doesn’t matter. the uniparty runs them all.


38 posted on 04/02/2015 10:17:57 AM PDT by jospehm20
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To: Ohioan
Thanks. And, as an aside, I just bought and started reading one of your books (The Return of the Gods) just for pleasure reading while my wife is TDY in California helping her Dad look after her Mom, who had a stroke and is going through a rough recovery.

Great book, BTW, but I didn't know conservatives could write such titillating sexy passages, LOL.

39 posted on 04/02/2015 10:28:56 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: SharpRightTurn

George Will, the “genius” who wrote this article, supported Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush over Reagan and claimed in 1979 and early 1980 that Reagan was too conservative to win.


40 posted on 04/02/2015 10:29:27 AM PDT by Josh Painter ("Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil." - Jerry Garcia)
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