lol
Posted on 06/10/2015 3:16:21 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Tea Party hero's roadmap to the presidency borrows from the failed presidential runs of Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani.
It’s sometimes easy to forget that Ted Cruz is running for president. While other 2016 Republican candidates are out giving big speeches and attaching themselves to causes and making trips to Europe, Cruz has stayed relatively quiet, which is strange given that his animating purpose up to this point has been to loudly remind you that Ted Cruz exists. The biggest headlines Cruz has earned for himself lately were for a dumb joke he told about Joe Biden just after the vice president’s son died (Cruz quickly apologized).
That’s not to say he hasn’t been busy, though. Despite middling poll numbers and no shortage of people who despise him, Ted Cruz thinks he’s got the perfect plan to win the White House. As Politico reports this morning, “Ted Cruz is embracing a novel strategy for winning the nomination: He’s lowering expectations in the early states while investing in later-voting states that hardly see a candidate before March.” At the same time that he’s downplaying Iowa and New Hampshire, Cruz is talking in terms of a drawn-out delegate fight that will win him the nomination by virtue of attrition:
But Cruz’s team is bracing for a long fight based on picking up delegates — a battle they plan to stretch all the way to the convention, where, the theory goes, he’ll be the last conservative standing — though a contested convention hasn’t happened in nearly 40 years.
Politico calls this a “novel” strategy that “defies the usual wisdom – and historical precedent.” But Cruz’s plan isn’t quite so original. It’s actually a mash-up of two failed strategies from two recent failed Republican presidential candidates: Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul.
While he exists now as a corrupt and cartoon-like political punchline, there was a brief period of time in which Rudy Giuliani was a well-regarded public figure. He was “America’s Mayor” or “Mayor of the World,” depending on who you asked. Rudy leaned on that image of post-9/11 tough-guy heroism to run for president in 2008, and quickly emerged as the popular and well-funded runaway favorite for the nomination. Then Republican voters got a close-up look at him and realized that he was relatively moderate, didn’t actually care about campaigning, and was very much a weirdo.
His support in the early states plummeted, and so Giuliani started telling reporters that his strategy all along was to forget about Iowa and New Hampshire and focus on Florida, where he planned to score a big win that would slingshot him to the nomination. He lost badly in all the early states, but kept insisting that his forthcoming Florida victory would set things right. That didn’t happen – Rudy finished third in Florida behind John McCain and Mitt Romney, then dropped out of the race. The problem with the Giuliani strategy was that when you lose contest after contest, it’s tough to convince people to stick with you, especially if your response is to downplay the significance of those losses. They’d rather be with someone who’s putting up victories and has “momentum,” not someone who’s making excuses for why more people aren’t supporting him.
As for the delegate fight, this was the longstanding dream of Ron Paul supporters who envisioned a guerilla campaign that would upset the establishment and tilt the nomination their way via a brokered convention. Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign manager said as much during an interview in March of that year, explaining how – like Ted Cruz now – they were going to fight in traditionally overlooked states like Texas and California and “stay in this race until he’s the nominee or another candidate has 1,444 bound delegates. We see a brokered convention situation as very likely.”
The problem here is the problem that bedeviled Paul: money. Running a long-slog campaign and fighting hard for every delegate is an expensive proposition. Moneybombs from Ron Paul’s base of fanatical devotees kept his lean campaign operation afloat, but he just couldn’t fight on the same level as other late-game candidates like Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. Cruz’s own fundraising operation seems to have some punch to it now, but the trick is making it last. It’s one thing to tell donors at the outset that you’re fighting to the finish, and quite another to convince them to stay on board while everyone else is defecting to the frontrunner’s camp.
“Our strategy is taking it to the convention,” Cruz’s political director told Politico, “which is why you’ve seen us announcing chairmen in California and New Jersey, as well as Iowa and New Hampshire.” Cruz’s campaign is banking on two assumptions: that Republican voters will rally behind a candidate who doesn’t win early, and that the party will forsake the convenience of coalescing behind a frontrunner in favor of a bruising delegate fight. Different candidates have tested these assumptions before and lost. Cruz seems to think the key to success is to test them both at the same time.
The RINO’s have invaded Freerepublic !
Sensing conservatives coalescing around a single champion (Ted Cruz) they sought a wedge issue to use against Cruz to try to impotently imply Cruz's support for this issue proves he is no true conservative!
ROFL
What A LOAD OF CRAP.
Who are we suppose to vote for The Donald? BAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
The Huckster???? BAHAHAHAHAHA
and couple of dim wits that have never been elected to anything and wont get within a solar system of the nomination (Carson and Fiorina) ? ROFL
OH! OH! How about we support ole Frothy (Santorum) !! Yeah!! that's the ticket !!!! BAAHAHAHAHAHA
GET FREAKING REAL!!!!!
It's Cruz or possibly Walker or no one.
Any one that says otherwise is shilling for Bush.
Well, who is your candidate??
Ted Cruz is the only true Conservative in this race.
~~Cruz, OR LOSE~~
I’ll tell you why I think that Ted voted for this sewage. I believe that some big contributor of his wants this secretive deal passed. I hope I’m wrong, but for the first time ever, Ted’s explanation of his vote makes zero sense. Bob
i’m not ruling out walker. and not to pull rank, but i’ve been around fr just a few more years than you. so you know where to stuff your rino accusations (need a diagram? lol).
i agree
cruz would be great if he would dump free trade.
unfortunately i think he has gone around rattling so many cages that he proves he is not a serious presidential contender.
VP pit bull just maybe, if he dumps free trade.
lol
stuff it, and then wear this so you don't leak or leave a brown streak.
This is a common every day thing, they stopped doing this for a day or two when he received all those donations
You didn’t answer my simple question: “Who is your candidate?”
Spend some time listening to this Youtube, then THINK.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sznh5AjageI&feature=youtu.be&t=3127
To call Cruz a “traitor, you would have to call me a traitor, as well as all other REAL conservatives. THAT would not be advisable.
Now, go listen to the YouTube and then..... answer my question. If you answer my question truthfully, it will be then that I will know what you truly are.
I wouldn’t even know Salon.com existed if it weren’t for FR posting.
In response to people who are afraid that he voted to give more power to Obama, he said that he didn't trust Obama at all. Obama won't be in the office in 19 months. He looked into the future for the next president to have an authority to negotiate. Hopefully, the next president will be a Republican, especially him. Now is the time to get it passed with Democrats. If we wait for the next administration (Republican), Democrats in Congress will vote it down no matter what.
For TPP, he said it was stupid to have the text classified. He READ the TPP. It was relatively a straightforward trade agreement. He didn’t have weeks to study each paragraph closely. Unfortunately, from the past history of the administration’s abuse of power, the secrecy gives the impression that they are hiding something horrible in the bill. Fortunately, under TPA they have to make any trade agreement, including TPP, public for 60 days before the Congress can vote on it. People can study closely at this time. But personally he wanted the text public right now.
Thanks.
Vague.... LOL, yes. “Evolving”....and he will be able to explain more after he’s in office. ;>) I don’t even like Wisconsin cheese. LOL
There’s something about Salon that has me thinking “hysterical faggotry.”
But too many in our party are just lazy and will not put in any effort to find out the truth about Cruz.
I have. Go Walker. He is going to skip all the states until the states in March? I just don’t see how that will work. For those who say he is like President Reagan....President Reagan not only wouldn’t do this but didn’t do this.
This article I the equivalent of Hitler writing an article pushing benefits for Jews. Salon writing this is very positive for Cruz.
The Mental Masturbation Mutts are at it again
>>cruz would be great if he would dump free trade.<<
So, now to get conservative votes a candidate has to be a protectionist?
I thought that was the Democrats’ job, to protect their donations from union leaders?
Free trade benefits all; it’s not a zero sum game.
And if the Obama administration agrees to a bad treaty, the House and Senate won’t approve it and it won’t go into effect.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.