Posted on 11/21/2015 12:42:02 PM PST by VinL
Ted Cruz gets no respect.
At least no respect in keeping with the impressiveness of the campaign he's built and his increasing odds of winning the Republican nomination.
The press and the political class are beginning to catch on to Cruz's strength, and there has been more talk of a prospective Cruz-Marco Rubio race, but his coverage and his buzz have been lagging indicators.. and they are still lagging.
After the GOP debate in Milwaukee, a Politico survey of Republican insiders had as many respondents saying Cruz won (6 percent) as Ben Carson and John Kasich (6 percent each). This is extraordinary.
Cruz tends to be an afterthought in the Sunday show chatter and on TV generally.
The Atlantic tracks candidate mentions on cable TV. In the past 100 days, Cruz ranks ninth among all candidates from both parties, well behind Chris Christie and just above Kasich, both of whom are throwing Hail Marys for the nomination.
A Washington Post analysis looked at the cable TV coverage devoted to each candidate compared with his or her position in the polls. It found that Cruz got 60 percent less coverage than you’d expect from July through October.
Donald Trump, as you might expect, gets more coverage than warranted by his polling. So does Jeb Bush. It's as though the media haven't been able to adjust coverage of the former Florida governor to account for his diminished stature in the race.
The indications of the strength of Cruz's operation and the shrewdness of his positioning are mounting.
He had more cash on hand at the end of the third quarter than any other Republican. He has major super PAC backing.
He assessed the anti-establishment mood in the party more accurately than any of the other traditional candidates.
He reacted to the rise of Trump very deftly for his purposes. He has seen a couple of key potential competitors, Scott Walker and Rand Paul, hit a wall or badly underperform.
He has a discernible ideological and geographic base.
He has, relatedly, a path to the nomination that is simple and intuitive (win Iowa, consolidate the right and beat an establishment that might be too fractured and unpopular to prevail).
He lights up pretty much every conservative audience he addresses. He is an excellent debater, and he doesn’t make tactical or rhetorical mistakes.
And yet he doesn’t really get his due. Why?
The political press corps made up its mind about him — too divisive — as soon as he showed up in Washington and has never gotten over its dismissiveness about his campaign.
The appeal of Cruz’s conservative populism is lost on most reporters and political insiders, who have a natural reflex to roll their eyes at the message and the messenger.
Cruz is not as interesting as Trump and Carson, and he doesn’t feature in any personal drama like the Bush-Rubio mentor-mentee showdown.
Finally, he is graded on a bit of a curve. He routinely performs so well at Republican cattle calls that his standing ovations tend to get discounted.
Cruz is hardly a cinch. Trump and Carson are significant obstacles in Iowa. His theory that he will inherit Trump and Carson’s support if the outsiders deflate is too simplistic. So is his schematic of the race as coming down to two candidates, one representing conservatives (him) and someone representing moderates.
Nonetheless, it should be obvious that Cruz is a serious threat for the nomination.
Be warned, and get over it.
Point taken, however very different circumstances. Palin was VP candidate running with a weak Pres candidate. Trump is the candidate and has been having these crowds from day one. Ask Cruz and the others if they’d like to have crowds like that.
Well we can still discuss who we like for appointments can’t we? Political speculation is the backbone of FR. I like Cruz for AG. Trump is a better choice for President. IMO. :-)
I think he deserves a kewpie doll prize for that profound statement.
I never though I would see the day where "too" conservative or "too" Christian would be a negative on this forum. The times they are a changin'.
LOL, Oops... Thanks for the mention.
TPP is the "big damn deal!"
I remind you that we are still 1 year away. Things change, and a circus draws a crowd.
No Doubt!
No, we need Donald Trump.
Trump is the ONLY one who has the standing and inside knowledge to defeat the GOPe & media. Though I’m not sure even he can do it.
And he has financial success, experience, and extensive knowledge so it won’t be so easy for Congress to just pay off their donors with crap plans.
Finally, he states his position and sticks by it. Even if the world comes down on him, which they do, he doesn’t back down.
If Trump’s knocked out, Cruz is gone. They destroyed him once over the gov’t shutdown and that was baby voodoo next to the Presidential race.
Hey, me likey circus... and the clowns are awesome and they do outrageous things.
The only problem with your plan is that Ted Cruz is unable to even come within striking distance of Trump in the polls. He’s just not going to be the nominee. In many polls Cruz is still at 7%-8.5%. A few polls at 10%-11% and I guess the one poll at 18% which is still 10pts behind Trump. Where do you see him making up 10 points? I’m not seeing it.
No other candidate in the GOP race is going to surge to overtake Trump. He’s just too far out in front.
Agreed...nothing like the sleazebag I currently have.
So much of what you laid out in your post went unmentioned by the founders, because it was so uncontroversial. The right to life is written right into the Declaration. Little more mention is made of it, because it was so obvious to all.
Your other points, the Founders could barely understand as political issues. Who in the world would argue to the contrary?
Sadly, there is only one candidate who consistently embodies these core American virtues. Ted Cruz for President of the United States of America.
A constitutional government after eight years of lawlessness.
Yes, you’re right...Trump’s #s can still go higher and the crowds get larger.
LOL! :D
'Tis very true.
If we went by poles, President Guilliani should be completing his term about now.
I don't go by poles, I go by whoever is the best conservative. I am a conservative and confident about where I stand.
I voted for my last liberal in 2012. Without going into detail, I sought out God's guidance on the matter and chose to disregard it. The spiritual crisis that resulted lasted quite a long time.
I won't make that mistake again. I'll never vote for Trump. As my husband said after watching the man's erratic Iowa speech, "That guy doesn't belong anywhere near the White House."
Very well said. You can find threads where some of the people who adore him now had his number then as a shyster and a joke.
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