I am holding fire on Cruz but what worries me is so many Cruz supporters seem to think wining low vote voter turn our states and deep red states translates into a strong General Election candidate.
National election are not won preaching to the choir.
That was exactly the most popular operating theory on FR in 2012 and 2008, when the GOP-E explained that we needed to appeal to independents, moderates and crossovers, and avoid extremism.
I don’t believe Cruz can win the general. Too far right for everybody but the far right. Krauthammer (I know, I know ... but he’s got a good way with words now & again) wrote a piece the other day & one of the things he said was: “they (Evangelicals] are increasingly reluctant to support like-minded candidates who are nonetheless incapable of advancing their cause in a hostile political arena so dominated by secularism”.
Leaving out the Evangelical part, but looking at the candidates themselves, far right “conservative” Constitutional candidates & running strictly on the same, like Cruz IMO, are incapable of advancing their cause in a hostile political arena so dominated by the enemedia, Liberalism, Progressivism and secularism. There has to be some other reason to vote for a candidate this political season .... I think Trump has hit on it and it’s a ‘sea change’ among the masses of the downtrodden & “unprotected” as Noonan described ‘we the people’ (as opposed to the elites). The same old play book is not going to work because we’re just not going to take it any more and are not voting on ideology or policy, but strength & “kicking over the table & starting a new game despite the chaos that will result” (Newt). The GOP elites have stacks of coins & systems in place to collect those coins & when Trump kicks over the table, all of that is gone or seriously disrupted. I don’t know if Newt was making a religious reference (I think he slyly was), but the GOP elites are all screaming the equivalent of “crucify him” where Trump is concerned.