Posted on 04/24/2015 5:33:57 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Elizabeth Warren versus Ted Cruz? Not likely. Only the most extraordinary circumstances could produce this improbable contest for the presidency in 2016.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was the first to declare his candidacy for the Republican nomination, but his hardcore ideology and abrasive manner make him unlikely to be chosen by calmer heads closer to the center of the party.
And despite persistent efforts by left-wing Democrats to change her mind, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is emphatic in her refusal to run for the office.
Still, consideration of the remote possibility that these two could face off for the presidency brings this question into sharp relief: What kind of country are we?
Filmmaker Michael Moore has an opinion. In a chapter entitled “A Liberal Paradise,” from his book “Dude, Where’s My Country?” he argues that the United States is a “land of liberal-lefty peacenik tree-huggers.”
Of course, Moore is easy to dismiss. His politics reside at the far-left, semi-socialist end of the Democratic spectrum, and his style is often brash and abrasive. So consider the source.
But Moore builds his case on polls taken by organizations such as Harris, Gallup, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Harvard and even Fox News.
Moore argues that on a wide variety of issues — from abortion to gun control to the environment to health care — Americans lean much more to the left than to the right.
Moore’s book was published in 2003, so his statistics are a decade out of date, but many of the attitudes they reflect are probably durable, and on some issues, they may now trend even further to the left.
For example, Moore cites polls from Gallup, the Los Angeles Times, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Newsweek, among others, to describe an America in which 68 percent of its citizens favor laws against discrimination against homosexual employees, and half say that gay and lesbian couples should be entitled to the same benefits that opposite-sex married couples receive.
Last month, the Washington Post reported that 59 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage, and half believe that the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection gives gays and lesbians the right to marry. We’re trending left on this issue.
In fact, I suspect that many Americans are currently as concerned about other issues ordinarily associated with the left — marijuana legalization and the environment, for example — as they were in 2003, if not more so.
But statistics take us only so far. Although the word “liberal” has been demonized by the right, on many issues Americans’ attitudes tend to the political left, even if they often conflict with what Americans say and how they vote.
Big government versus small government? Small government, of course. But we like the security, stability and benefits that result from the collective energy of a government that provides services beyond the capacity of private enterprise. We like having police officers and firefighters, good schools and the most powerful military in the world. We like good highways, and we like being able to drink water out of any tap in the U.S. without having to worry about contracting cholera.
High taxes versus low? Low, of course. But even if we don’t always realize it (“Keep your government hands off of my Medicare!”), we also like the social safety net — as porous as it is — that makes us different from many other countries, where the poor and the ill are left to suffer and die on their own.
Generalizing a little, conservatism hopes to restore a fondly remembered past; liberalism imagines that public policy can be wielded to improve the future. Maybe the best we can do lies somewhere in between.
Which may explain why we’ll probably be treated to a conventional Clinton-versus-Bush battle that, no matter how it turns out, won’t provide much chance for real change.
Too bad. The improbable Warren-versus-Cruz contest would tell us a lot more about who we really are.
Anyone who goes into a debate with Ted Cruz, goes unarmed.
Warren/Cruz, Cruz takes 49 states. There’s always one in the crowd.
Abrasive manner?
“....Americans’ attitudes tend to the political left, even if they often conflict with what Americans say and how they vote.”
So this author says Americans’ are actually leftist even though what they say and how they vote says otherwise. Friggin moron.
My money is on it being Massachusetts.....
I love how the author answers the question of big vs small government by saying “small but...” and then lays out a few things that a government could do while implying “anyone in favor of these things really wants a big government” as if those things are where the bloat comes from.
Let’s see. A compassionate NWO communist - Benghazi Clinton or a Stalinist NWO communist - Bernie Sanders or an intellectual elite NWO communist - Lizzie Warren or an autocratic egocentric NWO communist - O’Malley or an all around a$$ NWO communist - Schummer or finally one LSD shot too many NWO communist - Moonbeam Brown ..... just so many choices, all bad!!!!
Hmmm, I sure wonder who the stealth Conservative pretender is going to be. Actually, that has become crystal clear.
The GOPe is here and working their little fingers to the bone. Couldn't be more obvious.
He's lying.
I cannot imagine, for the life of me, how Elizabeth Warren is qualified for President.
Sure, she can WANT to be President. That’s fine. People can want what they want. But she is not the least bit qualified. I think we need only remind the public what a less-than-one-term senator has done for us and to us over the past six years.
The general American public must be a lot more stupid than I thought.
I think she’d be very hard to beat.
The journ-0-lists will push the economic populism angle hard.
Her Groupons for student loan forgiveness lock in the under 30 vote and her Soc Sec increases get the old folks.
Throw in a black or hispanic VP, bring in Axlegrease and Plouffy to run the show, and you have a winning candidate.
Yeah, that caught my eye too.
Forceful, passionate, driven, maybe, but abrasive?
On second thought, truth is supposed to be divisive, maybe that’s what they meant to say.
I just don’t understand people these days.
It’s the media.
The media used to be strongly pro-Democrat but independent.
In 2008 with the nomination of Baraq Obama, they became integral members of the progressive regime.
I’m old enough to remember when the “deficit” was actually talked about by the media.
Now it doesn’t even exist in popular discussion.
So a candidate like Warren can promise more gravy to the masses with no fear of being asked how the hell is that sustainable?
The ‘Rats will always put up the leftmost leftist.
It would be nice for once if the GOP can resist putting up their own leftist, and go with a Centrist like Cruz.
That’s right, Cruz... can’t be any more centrist than him.
Picture it. This lady debating the best debater Princeton has produced since our Founding Fathers (IMO).
Ted Cruz knows how to debate WITHOUT NOTES and without tremendous prep-work, and he can debate both sides of an argument.
Plus, he is actually nice as he does it.
Most people can't argue without getting all hot and bothered.
I would rather enjoy a Cruz-Warren debate, or anyone else the libs can line up.
Daily Digest Ted Cruz Ping! Ted Cruz Ping!
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