Posted on 02/19/2016 9:33:47 PM PST by joanie-f
Please convince me that Trump doesn't have a staff that has drilled him on the conservative "buzz words" that will be the "exact things conservatives need to hear from a candidate".
I see an incessant narcissist who cannot effectively delineate his policies without sticking to those buzz words.
I see a man who sees himself as the anti-Obama, but I fear he will use Obama's, and Hillary's executive tactics for his own gain.
I don't believe what he says and I don't trust what he does!
Correction, "I see a man who portrays himself as the anti-Obama..."
Lawyers are known for being ethically challenged.... Cruz needs to stay out of politics and work on his shaky ethics.
Cruz has attitude in spades....he is most offensive when he starts explaining things to the rest of us.....thinking we are too dumb to figure it out.
His sinking poll numbers indicate voters feel the same way.
Agreed.
In Iowa, Cruz got victory without triumph. Appears most people were not enthusiastic about his so-called win.
He keeps trying to spin this....but the fact remains that the super-smart obsessively ambitious Cru was so scared about not winning that he colluded to steal Carson/s votes.
1500 precinct captains got the Cruz message---Carson is out; caucus w/ Cruz.
Ben Carson's wife was at an Iowa caucus when Cruz/s desperate trick to get votes was in play. She asked if she could speak on the subject....she told the caucus goers none of it was true....Carson was still running. Incidentally, Carson won that caucus.
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BACKSTORY Cruz/s Senate election fairy tale has become legendary......portraying himself as a scrappy populist putting everything on the line to overcome a wealthy establishment opponent.
He was whining in the media, telling trusting Texans that he, and his faithful little wife (a $700,000 globalist lawyer employed by G/S), were forced to liquidate their entire family savings (of slightly more than $1 million) to fuel a come-from-behind win in the Republican primary.
NOW TRUSTING TEXANS LEARN Cruz did not liquidate family assets.....he got his hands on over a million dollars from his hefty margin accounts at G/S and Citibank......and did not disclose this on FEC reports (to keep it a secret from trusting Texans).
Cruz did not disclose loans on FEC reports (required by law) b/c Texans would have discovered he was not the aw-shucks rube he pretended to be. He continued the rube act in order to milk votes from trusting Texans.
At the same time, he also did not disclose he was a dual Canadian citizen......the Harvard-educated lawyer w/ two Ivy League degrees said he didn't know.
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Cruz told Levin he used the Wall Street loans for the campaign/s TV ads......but these loans have never been reported as campaign-related. Cruz does not need th
You don’t have to believe Trump, just as I don’t have to believe Cruz.
Cool how that works, isn’t it?
The problem with that resume is that it only tells us what he’s done, not who he is, ie the essence of the man.
Amen Joanie-f! Absolutely and completely spot on.
Too many people in our nation run from one 30 second clip/sound bite to the next and they make their decisions based on that.
The MSM, this administration, and almost all pols know this...so they lead the people like a herder leads their live stock with a whole set of 30 second sound bites, fabrications, and misquote rings in their nose.
God bless you my friend. So very good to see your posts.
“So, you’re saying you just dismiss all of Cruz’ experience at SCOTUS (clerking, arguing and winning cases) the Fed Trade Comm., longest term as Solicitor Gen. of TX, etc., ....just because he’s a Senator?”
No, I didn’t say that. Try reading it again. I said I tend to...I also tend to think that a poster who tries to twist things to fit their agenda are suspiciously defensive. That doesn’t mean that I think that of you, it just means I tend to think that. I tend to prefer Redheaded freckle faced Irish girls, too, but I’m not married to one.
I DID say I am undecided always, waiting for the surprises or the unknowns that can crop up. I would have been VERY unhappy if I had made mind up and worked for Ross Perot and neglected looking at the alternatives. That last minute commitment is actually more uncomfortable than being locked in and ready to dismiss any other input, which is human nature.
You and I always seem to agree, or at least 99.9% of the time. But here, re: Ted Cruz, we have reached polar opposite conclusions.
I've been following this race since last summer, and had winnowed down my list of presidential preference to two names, one of which WAS Ted Cruz. But after the low-life, nasty, dirty tricks of the Iowa Caucus and the South Carolina Primary, his name is now MUD to me.
I don't care how magnificent a man's resume is, if his character S*CKS. I had thought Cruz was a brilliant constitutional scholar, worthy of my undying support. But he has been conducting himself like a junk-yard-dog shyster lawyer.
I don't judge a man by what he SAYS, but by what he DOES. And what he has been doing to Dr. Carson and Sen. Rubio reeks of "end-justifies-the-means" moral reasoning, the sort of thing we expect from acolytes of Saul Alinsky, and the very model of the moral relativism that is progressively destroying our nation from the inside out.
He seems to believe that "All is fair in love and war" -- and politics. To WIN is EVERYTHING. Nothing else matters. "Might makes right."
IMHO, he has totally disgraced himself, and I will not forgive him for it.
And then he has the gall to claim that he knew nothing about these tactics being advanced by his own campaign and his super pac. Oh really??? Shades of Inspector Renaud in Casablanca: "I'm shocked, shocked, to learn that gambling is going on in this establishment!" ["Your winnings, sir."] Were it true that he had no such knowledge, how competent could he be as a leader? Who is responsible? Who is accountable?
The man LIES.
I know Cruz had garnered a whole lot of Freeper support, and the above observations may make me as welcome as a skunk at a garden party around here. But conscience compels me to speak up.
I can show you where to look; but I cannot tell you what to see. I hope you will go and look for yourself, and drawn your own conclusions.
Thanks, joanie, for an otherwise fine essay-post.
Please! Next time tell us what you really think! ;-)
I’m still of the frame of mind to ask myself why in the world I should support an establishment candidate. All they’ve done is get to Washington and stab us in the back. They talk conservative purism on the trail and are pimps and whores once they hit the beltway.
And don’t think I’m giving Cruz a pass on this one. He voted for cloture on TPA and played the shell game against us with his final doomed-to-lose vote against it when it came to the floor. He even told us to look out for politicians who did that kind of thing. And I heard the April 2015 video AFTER HIS CAMPAIGN BEGAN when he says ‘control the border and then we’ll discuss what to do about the illegals’. I heard it with my own ears. I heard him in the April 2015 video AFTER HIS CAMPAIGN BEGAN saying we needed to vastly increase H1B visas. I know he voted for the idiotic Corker Nuke to Iran bill.
So, why exactly should I trust an insider the beltway politician again?
Might as well gamble on Trump. There is absolutely no way that he could be worse. At worst I get same old same old.
At best I get someone who lives up to everything he says.
At middling, I get someone who does some of what he says.
It’s Trump for me, betty. “The only thing I have to lose is losing itself!”
Great retort, Betty.
I, too, was once a staunch supporter of Ted Cruz, but began to sour on him after his parliamentary shenanigans on the TPA vote. From that point forward, there was deal-breaking revelation after deal-breaking revelation about Ted, which culminated in me fully withdrawing my support.
At the same time Ted was blowing me off, Trump was saying all the things I’ve longed to hear from a presidential candidate for decades. It didn’t take long for me to do enough due diligence to find my comfort zone with him. I now fully support him, and look forward to giving him my vote in the primary and the general.
BINGO!
LOLOL SubMareener!!! Somehow, I feel like a "jilted lover." :^)
Betty, thank you for your always eloquent, honestly and strongly felt discourse!
My understanding of the accusations against Cruz are these:
1) That he was actually for legalization of illegal immigrants during the gang of eight 8 because of the amendment he introduced. I contest this accusation because it ws clear at the time (and I was watching closely back then), and it has been made clear since, that that amendment was a tactic by Cruz to force the supporters of the gang of 8 bill to vote up or down on allowing the people they wanted to legalize to not get the vote. He did this to expose their agenda, and he spoke patiently for his amendment to set the hook. And he succeeded. The supporters of the gang of 8 bill, mainly democrats, but also including Rubio came out against the Cruz amendment, and it was voted down and thus the amendment did not pass, and thus they showed that their real issue was ultimately getting those people the vote. I believe Rubio knows this full well and that it is he, not Cruz, that is not being honest about it.
2) That during the Iowa caucus, the Cruz campaign falsely announced that Dr. Carson was going home and did not intend to go to NH. But it is my understanding as well that this was reported by CNN on that day as a result of talks with the Carson campaign, and that the Cruz campaign reported what CNN had said and drove it home. It is also my understanding that the Rubio campaign did exactly the same thing. The issue became a big news item when Trump, pointing to his own defeat, and looking for excuses for it, indicated that if Carson had gotten the votes that Cruz “stole”, then Cruz may not have won. Then, of course, Rubio piled on to this notion. I lay the fault of this at Carson’s feet, as much as I like him, because nothing about him going home should ever have been announced on that day. I do not blame the Cruz campaign for passing on news that CNN reported. If members of his staff knowingly embellished it, he should reprimand them...and depending on the seriousness...fire them. But it is hard to blame people on the ground, in the heat of battle, when seeing a report from CNN that casts a bad light on their opposition, for passing such information on.
3) My own complaint against Cruz is neither of those tow, but rather his mailer that went out that looked like something from the government, claiming that voters had gotten an “F” in the past for not voting and indicating that they needed to vote in the caucus for Cruz. Did Ted Cruz himself come up with that foolish idea? I seriously doubt it. ut once it went out he should have denounced it.
As I see it, primaries are a hard fought competition at a very hgh level of emotion and political thought. Where every side is seeking to gain any advantage over the other. Are their things that candidates do during that part of the election cycle that I do not like? Yes...absolutely.
But sometimes all of us are too harsh on the candidates for what their staff does. Yes, they are in charge, and yes they should respond if they see something that they KNOW is wrong or out of place. We know that Cruz is willing to act when things like this happen because of his demanding the resignation of his spokesman, Rick Tyler, yesterday.
If I look at Trump and Rubio...they have done similar things and more...over and over again. None of the front runners are clean in this. I would say that Carson and Kasich have been much less so...although the both of them have made some big mistakes as well.
At the end of the day, we are trying to defeat an abject and open socialist/marxist in Bernie Sanders, or an abject closet socialist/marxist in Hillary, who has lied to the entire American people about so many critical things that it is mind numbing. Her husband’s sexual crmes and predatory nature, her own initial attempts at socialized medicine, her email debacle where national security was put at horrible risk, the Benghazi travesty where she made up a story about a man and a video, who himself was sent to jail, to cover for treason, gun ruunning, and an attempt to allow enemies to kill every American there that might have reporesented a threat to the truth of what happened there. Save for the unvarnished bravery of a few forrmer Navy SEALS and other Special Forces, they most probably would have succeeded.
These are the people we MUST defeat.
Any one of the current/remaining GOP candidates would be several orders of magnitude better than either of them, and would lead to a turnaround in this country. Some may be stronger in that than others. I believe that the strongest would still be Ted Cruz, and despite detractors, believe he has a record in DC to show it.
Having said that, if Trump became the nominee, I would vote for him every day of the week and twice on Sundays...and in a New York minute. I would vote for Rubio if he were the nominee. I would vote for Carson or Kasich as well. All of them are talented and loyal Americans IMHO, despite whatever other failing they may have.
The future we face right now is dire if we get another 4 or 8 years of Obama’s policies or worse. I must do all I can to stop that from heppening, and that starts with recognizing this political process for what it is...and being willing to accept that during the primaries these candidates are going to fight amongst themselves.
I wish it were not so...but it has become the nature of the beast and to one extent or another, those who get embroiled in this at that level get some of that mud on them. All I can do is look at them, their records, the policies they ay they will enact, and then make my best decision...both during the primaries and then the general.
I respect that each of us must do the same, and do not hold that against them. In fact I am glad so manty peoplea re passionately involved.
...but I implore all, no matter how wounded you feel in the primaries, to not turn your back and walk away from whomever the nominee becomes. That would only serve to help produce an even worse outcome.
Hear, hear!
Well said, Jeff. I think anyone supporting Rubio at this point is delusional, but if he gets the nomination we’ll have to hope he beats the Dem and then ride House members on immigration like we did with Bush all of those years.
Excellent. We’ll put you down for Donald Trump then.
Ditto what you said, Jeff. Well put.
I personally try to ignore the Noise Machine. A good thing to do is remember what you knew about each candidate the day before the campaign mudslinging began, and keep that clearly in your mind.
If you are a regular at FR, you are more informed than the average bear about these people, and you knew who they were from the beginning. They have all hired good, and not so good, competent, and not so competent, people to change the subject. It doesn’t really work with me. If you understand how propaganda works, it won’t really work with you either.
Nick Taleb (The Black Swan) has made the point numerous times that the more you listen to the media, the less you know. The less you listen to the media, the more you know. I have found that to be pretty true. I tune them out.
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