Why I’m Rooting for Ted Cruz to Win Iowa and New Hampshire

The Nation ^ | January 22, 2016 | Leslie Savan

[detective]

I'll put it out there-I'm rooting for Ted Cruz to win Iowa and New Hampshire and anywhere else he can do damage to Trump before the Joe McCarthy lookalike self-immolates in a bonfire of biofuel, birth certificates, and Goldman Sachs loans.

Cruz, the only GOP candidate to come close to Trump in the polls, is in a bad way. Sarah Palin may have endorsed Trump in gibberish, but popular Iowa Governor Terry Branstad denounced Cruz for opposing ethanol subsidies in plain Iowa greedlish, and constitutional lawyers are raising serious questions about whether the Canadian-born senator is eligible to become president. And now, in a kind of SwiftChurching, accusations are flying that Cruz is a "phony" Christian.

[nclaurel]

I love Gary Busey he is mad in a funny way. Beck is mad in a self righteous way

[Lurkinanloomin]

Rubio would be a YUGE mistake.

Never give more knives to backstabbers

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Ted Cruz as Senate Majority Leader.

The "Cruz can’t win” meme is pretty old. But the “Cruz can’t win Senate Majority Leader” meme is dead on.

If Cruz isn’t elected POTUS, he should be named Attorney General pending the first available SCOTUS vacancy. He has pretty much burned bridges to Senate Republican leadership, and vice versa. He needs a new gig.

[20yearsofinternet]

RCP was also quite convinced that Romney was going to win with a comfortable few-point margin.

I have stopped caring about all of the poop-slinging. I certainly am not going to let a liberal rag like The Nation influence my thinking, but I gave the link a skim and the guy kind of hints on one of my issues with Cruz. (Full disclosure: I've decided to vote for Trump in the primary but I won't mind voting for Ted in the general if he wins.)

Over the past months, as I've paid closer attention to a lot of Cruz's public appearances and speeches and debate performances, there's been something I didn't like about his personality. It started off purely instinctual, like, he rubbed me the wrong way somehow. Over time, I think I've figured it out.

He comes off as having the personality of a condescending schoolmarm. Not only does he have a grating, whiny voice (which I can kind of overlook), but his intonations, his mannerisms, they are simply off-putting. It's like Ted "just knows" he's right about everything, and everyone else is stupid, even the people who agree with him. He is the smarty-pants, the ONLY Chosen One who is "pure of heart" enough to be king of the hill in the kingdom of those who he deems worthy of being a "true conservative".

There are obnoxious Trump supporters and obnoxious Cruz supporters, but I think there is a difference with the Cruz supporters. As much as they mock Trump supporters for being "stupid and cult-ish", they themselves seem to be the ones suffering from a sort of mania where anyone who doesn't support Ted is not a member of the "true congregation". In other words, they view anyone who doesn't support Cruz as a heretic. This makes some sense, since Ted Cruz is basically 50% legislator and 50% preacher in the way he frames his public speaking (on the campaign trail, anyway).

And that's the subtext I pick up when I hear people call Trump "not conservative enough". What they really seem to mean is "not Holy enough". And they yard stick he seems to be measured against, is "Anointed One" Ted Cruz.

I want anyone I vote for to espouse traditional Judeo-Christian values. I'm happy when people are comfortable talking about their faith in the public square, because I don't want to live in an America where Christians are afraid to talk about what they believe in. HOWEVER, there are two caveats to this. At some point, being comfortable talking about it transcends simply being open, and becomes exploiting Christianity simply to get votes. Ted rides that line for me. (Carson is an example of a charlatan in my book when it comes to this.) I give Ted the benefit of the doubt that he's simply passionate about his faith, but sometimes he can seem like he's not running for President, but High Priest of America.

The other caveat is that, if someone doesn't want to go into the nitty-gritty details of their religious faith every single time they're at a podium, or asked specific gotcha questions by some media filth, I am OK with that too. Having a private relationship with Christ, and not wearing your faith on your sleeve, is completely endorsed by The Bible. But it seems like, to the most fanatical Ted supporters, if you don't run around clubbing everyone over the head with a Bible in your humorless, Ned Flanders-esque quest to ascend political office, you're a heathen.

Anyway, I'm rambling here, but these are some of the things that have tipped me over to Trump. He's not perfect, and Cruz is someone I could vote for in the general without feeling bad about it. But increasingly, Ted's most fanatical supporters are starting to annoy me, as they adopt the same unjustifiably condescending attitude as their candidate in their crusade to label everyone else a lost soul under the influence of Satan.

[dp0622]

That was good. I guess both have strong and weak points. Anyway this game is over. 20 pts is a huge lead at this point.

[tinyowl]

Name calling in the first idea. So I stop reading. Not because I’m scared ... But because I know the rest is trash. That goes for both sides of this debate.

[detective]

“I stop reading”

I am sorry to hear that. Please read the article. Please make yourself aware that there are people who support Senator Cruz only because they think he will damage Trump. There are people who support Cruz only because they think he will fill the role of designated loser to Hillary Clinton.

I like Senator Cruz. I am impressed by his intelligence, his integrity and his courage. I hope he has a long and successful career and is able to contribute to building the future of America.

But I am also aware that there are many who support Cruz only in the hope that he will bring down Trump and then will lose himself.

[Steamburg]

So anxious to make Glenn Beck Right? Bernie isn’t my choice for president.

[DoughtyOne]

Please VOTE in the Free Republic Caucus 01/24/2016.

Thank you.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Not at all.
Beck is certifiable.

[Wuli]

I respect neither the positions, or the analysis that comes out of The Nation. That publication is as much for this nation as Karl Marx. I would discard what they think about Trump or Cruz as intellectual masturbation, and about as important to you or I as that.

[elpadre]

here is another good reason fro Cruz to win: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5HXItQ5Sro

[entropy12]

Also, the general election polls are irrelevant in January. Trump has not even started on Hillary or Sanders. They will go down 20 points same as Trump’s GOP opponents, after Trump unloads on the democrat nominee.