The secret meeting where Ted Cruz argued that the right should unite behind him and [Truncated]

But as the forum got underway, it became apparent that most of the speakers hadn’t prepared themselves accordingly. In fact, five of the six candidates gave some version of the standard stump speech they offer the public, attendees said, ignoring what one described as “the elephant in the room, this idea that people want to coalesce behind one candidate.”

The lone exception was Cruz. “He was the only one who bought into that and tailored his entire speech to it,” says the attendee, who, despite working for a rival candidate, gushed that on a scale of 1 to 10, Cruz’s speech was a 14. “He was pitch-perfect. He got briefed well by his staff. He came in like a lawyer making his case, effectively saying, ‘I am the only one who can unite the movement.’ ”

“Cruz blew everyone else out of the water,” says a second attendee, a CNP organizer who has not signed on with any of the 2016 contenders. “He made the best case, I think, for conservative leaders and organizations to think strategically about working together to help propel a conservative candidate into contention. … He was savvy enough to understand what that room wanted to hear. Don’t just come and give us your conservative speech. Tell us: Why should we should support you? And tell us: What’s your plan to win?”

Soooooo .. I guess your candidate is Rubio ..??

Otherwise, why would you be flooding the thread with so many messages which badmouth Ted Cruz.

Sorry, but now that I’ve read your constant drumbeat .. here’s a little bit of news for you: “A Vote for TPA is Not a Vote for Obama”, by George Will. Hmmmmmm ..???

George Will is a Tory, i.e a statist Republican. You will understand TPA in a few months. Even Scott Walker likes it. A vote for TPA is a vote for the most capitalist hating free-trade hating president in American History to set the terms of trade. And Cementing AGW into the American system is a major priority of TPA, according to the President. TPA gives over control of the terms of trade to Obama in consortium with a group of heads of state that make determinations that are then binding on every level of the USA and can repeal US laws. If that is what you desire, well, what can I say?

Rubio? You mean as in Bush Lite? I am down on Cruz because he appeared, with Walker, to be the Last Best Hope. He collapsed in the glare of The Leader Hussein and then so did Walker. We have no on, now. Or rather, it simply does not matter. The next president will be a dictator. We will be, at best, trying to elect the dictator most compatible with our own interests, or such interests as do not include the Constitution. That would still seem to leave us Walker as the one who has made the least audible concession to unlimited immigration.
The Presidency has been endowed by Congress and the courts with the powers reserved by the Constitution for for Congress. What has been given up cannot be regained. This Congress will pile grant after grant of its residual powers to The Leader as rapidly as it is able. It looks rather like the transition of Rome from Republic to Empire, except that Rome did not dismantle its military in the process and that Empire was a success, as empires go, for several more centuries. This "Empire" appears to be destined to be at the mercy of several other imminent empires that are growing rapidly and have already attacked us with no response.

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