“there would be an enormous turnout to vote FOR a true conservative”
Sorry, but there is not one ounce of evidence to back up that claim, if anything the nation as a whole has gotten less conservative in my lifetime, not more. Granted the nation is not off the left wing bernie sanders cliff yet, not even close, but if you think the nations electorate is as conservative today as it was in 1984, you are fooling yourself.
AS I said, I can live with a Cruz presidency, but I don’t see any evidence to remotely suggest he can win a general election. He isn’t even polling at 20% among republicans themselves... to think he’s got mass appeal outside the base is wishful thinking and not backed by any evidence.
Trumps polling shows he’s pulling in democrats and independents, hell the simple fact he’s in the race has caused the Teamsters to hold off supporting Hillary already, that’s a huge tectonic shift in the political landscape that Cruz will not have.
Time will tell how this all plays out, but Cruz is a divisive figure, I know many people who will never vote for him, and they aren’t liberals they are swing voters.
We’ll see how it all plays out, but I don’t see anything that convinces me Cruz has any legitimate shot in the general election. I wish that was not the case, but to date I see nothing to convince me of this. To argue he can win a general when he’s floating at +/- 10% in primary polling is a bit delusional.
The “if we just put up a conservative, they will come” is a nice idea, lord knows it would make for more interesting debates, but if you wish to prove that point, you need to find a conservative who hasn’t managed to personally piss off a large portion of the electorate long before he decided to run for President.
I wonder if you know how many true conservatives will stay home this election cycle if Trump is the nominee. But no problem, I guess. There are so many liberal-leaning folks who can make up for those of us who refuse to vote progressive. At that point, we can finally put conservatism to rest. After all, if the folks at the “Premiere Conservative Site on the Net” can’t support the most conservative candidate, who could possibly be expected to in the future? I say, kill the conservative beast!