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Wisconsin and The Heidi Moment
Townhall.com ^ | April 14, 2016 | Robert Charles

Posted on 04/14/2016 10:18:55 AM PDT by Kaslin

So, every pundit east of Wisconsin is talking New York and delegate math. Trump is still grousing about gestapo-land, already taking a victory lap in his Democrat-dominated Empire State. But does it really all matter? Has something happened with the other top candidate? Yes, Cruz is sharp, expert at the delegate process, but there is something more. Did he actually get lift off a week ago, and the moment passed so fast media missed it? I think so. I think we got break out by the guy long known as a talented Supreme Court litigator turned politician. Something has changed. Something has definitely changed in the heartland over the past ten days.

Maybe it is just spring arriving, maybe quickening pulses in newly important States, maybe just a “feeling” that closure is approaching – but something is suddenly different. Like the moment fog lifts, cement hardens or a recipe gels, something has changed. When exactly is not clear, but the presence of something new is in the air. Some say it is a new confidence and personal peace in Cruz. Some say it was “The Heidi Moment.”

On the evening of April 5th, after a stunning comeback in Wisconsin, Ted Cruz delivered the best speech of his campaign. The speech, which insiders indicate he wrote himself, was Reagan-like. Cruz projected genuine optimism, hope of a rare and unifying sort, the kind that awakens a great Nation to its better nature. He held forth a national vision, spoke inclusively, honored past competitors, and quoted incisively from John F. Kennedy and Winston Churchill.

Here, at last, was a presidential candidate becoming more relaxed, somehow taller, stronger in timber and magnanimous. “We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that will light the way out of darkness,” he credited to Kennedy. “We once again have hope for the future,” he nodded to Churchill.

What caused that turn of sentiment, shift in cadence, and elevation of tone? On the numbers, Wisconsin’s remarkable turnaround, and that day’s foreseeable echo into the future, was part of it. Down by 10 points two weeks prior, Cruz had never lost hope or focus. He overcame the deficit to post a 48 percent to 35 percent victory – shocking. This certainly helped.

But was that whopping turnaround cause or effect? And was there something else? Something beyond Wisconsin is afoot. With professionalism and attention to detail, Cruz won 69 percent of Utah’s vote, garnering all delegates. He worked similar magic in North Dakota, securing 18 of 19 delegates. In a workmanlike way, he won all of Colorado’s delegates. So, in a matter of days, he secured walk-off victories in four states, with widely diverging demographics. Maybe that is part of the shift.

Maybe it was the way he pivoted so smoothly into general election formation, at the close of his Wisconsin speech. He challenged Hillary Clinton on terms that will keep her awake nights, if she is not already sleepless over FBI intentions. Maybe it was the way Cruz elevated jobs and the economy, spoke convincingly of growth, reduced regulation, lower taxes that border security – inspiring those who put those issues tops. Or maybe it was something else altogether, the injection of something new.

Whatever the cause of this inflection point in mood toward Cruz, Trump is deeply uneasy. He struck back in ways reminiscent of a wheel spinning in mud, spraying the field with accusations of Cruz being part of “The Establishment,” then a “Trojan Horse used by the Establishment,” then a favored son in these four states.

Getting little traction in this stretch, Trump switched up his staff, sidelined his campaign manager, and derided Republican State parties, the Republican National Committee and the long-established delegate system as “crooked” and “rigged” against him, although many states have used their system for decades, and all rules were announced last summer, if not before.

No, something else is afoot. Cruz is proving himself a consummate, uniquely capable fighter, student of the rules, master of complex processes. And the world is a complex place. By contrast, gnawing doubts are eating at the Trump constituency. Trump supporters are beginning to see the candidate as not ready to lead, unable to digest a modestly complex set of rules, even when his own political fortunes depend on it. He is openly stumbling. Worse, he is flailing about and blaming others, his team, his opponents, his party, state parties, the state by state voters, the media, talk radio, the convention process – everyone but himself.

There is one last element in play, and it is a big one. To understand this element, which is assisting the swell to Cruz, one must watch that Cruz victory speech in Wisconsin. The speech was not Reagan at the Berlin Wall or Normandy, but it harkened to a better time, one in which Americans were “free to choose,” openly patriotic, more secure and more free, sure-footed and unafraid to be themselves, “a beacon on the Hill.” The speech appealed to Reagan Democrats and working Americans, but there was more. Heidi Cruz.

What happened that night – and is likely to happen in weeks ahead – is that a great candidate came into his own. And his wife, a working mother and professional, confident, full of character and caring, utterly captured the crowd. When Ted Cruz lovingly introduced his wife as his “best friend,” and spontaneously asked the crowd if she would not make a wonderful First Lady, the place exploded. That kind of reaction to a future First Lady has not shown itself for years. Maybe it was the attacks by Trump on women, including Heidi. Maybe it was her charm, but those moments are rare in politics.

What does “The Heidi moment” mean? A lot. It means that Americans – that night and in the weeks ahead – are waking up to team, a husband and wife of enormous depth, intelligence, character and good will. Ted Cruz is more than a cogent debater and smart strategist, presidential and ready for battle. Heidi Cruz is more than a thoughtful Mom, wife and professional woman. The two of them, together, are what we – as Americans – have been hoping on. When the final chapter of this race is written, New York will not matter. The inflection point of the race was that speech, that night in Wisconsin.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections; US: Wisconsin
KEYWORDS: cruzhaters; cruzspeech; goldmansachs; heidicruz; tedskeywordtroll; tedskeywordtrolls; trumpcultists; wisconsin; wisconsinprimary
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To: Talisker
Actually, Heidi was the personal assistant to the Managing Director of Goldman Sachs and President of the World Bank, Robert Zoelick, who was in charge of lobbying to destroy our borders through the World Trade Organization, The Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and The Project for the New American Century, through pushing Climate Change and Lower Carbon Growth to justify weakening out eliminating our borders via the creation of the North American Union (NAU).

Heidi is a traitor

Actually, that summary is a little confused.

Heidi Cruz was deputy to U.S. Trade Rep. Robert Zoellick, focusing on economic policy in the George W. Bush White House. She then worked in the Bush White House as director of the Latin America desk at the Department of Treasury, and later as director for the Western Hemisphere on the National Security Council.

Robert Zoelick didn't move to the World Bank until five years after Cruz stopped working for him. He was at Goldman Sachs from 2006 to 2007, which did overlap with Heidi Cruz, except that she did not work with him there - she was in Texas.

Heidi Cruz did work with the Council on Foreign Relations, in one economic proposal, and she wrote a dissent from their conclusions. She argued that economic development should be privately led rather than government led. Zoellick's work with The Project for the New American Century and the Trilateral Commission took place before he met Heidi Cruz (in the 1990s).

Heidi Cruz is an economist.

81 posted on 04/14/2016 1:43:09 PM PDT by Pollster1 (Somebody who agrees with me 80% of the time is a friend and ally, not a 20% traitor. - Ronald Reagan)
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To: Pollster1

>>Cruz and Trump are both imperfect but they agree far more than 80% of the time...<<

Are you kidding? Trump doesn’t agree with himself even 80% of the time. How is Cruz supposed to best that?

Do you think, for instance, Cruz considers Putin a “strong leader” in the sense that Trump means it?

I would wager that if you could actually get Trump to write down what he would do in terms of policy on 100 issues, he would be incoherent on well over half of them, and that Cruz would disagree with him most of the time.

For starters, Trump is not a constitutional conservative. As soon as the Constitution gets in the way of a President Trump, it will be treated as toilet paper, exactly the way he’s been treating the state delegate rules that have been getting in his way lately. Cruz, however, is the epitome of a constitutional conservative. The difference between the two is stark, and it amazes me how many people in here fail to realize that fact.


82 posted on 04/14/2016 2:02:38 PM PDT by Norseman (Defund the Left....completely!)
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To: Pollster1
Heidi Cruz is an economist.

She's an economist who works with the highest level globalists pushing trade agreements that DIRECTLY assault our sovereignty, and openly push the creation of the North American Union to REPLACE Canada, the United States and Mexico, both economically AND politically.

And all your lawerly micro-parsing doesn't change that one single tiny bit.

She's a traitor.

83 posted on 04/14/2016 2:07:36 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: sorrisi

>>Can we please stick to the issues instead of all the infantile, brainless name calling?<<

From your mouth to Donald’s ears?

When dear leader leads with “infantile, brainless, name calling” his followers will exhibit the same.

And when dear leader calls for mob justice to right perceived wrongs against him, he’ll get that too.

Who we pick to lead us tells us much about ourselves.


84 posted on 04/14/2016 2:07:40 PM PDT by Norseman (Defund the Left....completely!)
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To: HamiltonJay

Ted can never create a personality form himself.


85 posted on 04/14/2016 2:17:24 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God Bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: Norseman
Are you kidding? . . . For starters, Trump is not a constitutional conservative. As soon as the Constitution gets in the way of a President Trump, it will be treated as toilet paper, exactly the way he’s been treating the state delegate rules that have been getting in his way lately. Cruz, however, is the epitome of a constitutional conservative. The difference between the two is stark, and it amazes me how many people in here fail to realize that fact.

http://www.ontheissues.org/Donald_Trump.htm

http://www.ontheissues.org/Ted_Cruz.htm

Trump has evolved on abortion, roughly five years ago. He can say abortion is wrong and should be stopped but does not articulate the details well. Cruz has always opposed abortion and articulates the reason much more clearly. I count that as a match, even though they differ on details.

Trump has supported the death penalty for at least 16 years. He says it is "uncivilized" to let murderers live. Cruz argued for the death penalty in front of the Supreme Court and won. I count that as a match too.

Trump and Cruz differ on what I consider minor public education details, but both want to end Common Core and cut the Department of Education. Another match.

Trump has opposed gun control for at least five years and says that guns save lives. Cruz has supported the Second Amendment for his entire adult life and can probably quote both the Federalist Papers and the actual debates to explain why our God-given individual right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. I count that as another match.

Both want to get rid of illegal immigrants, secure the border and modernize our legal immigration system. Both want to repeal Obamacare. There are differences in the details, but I call those a match.

I am concerned about Trump's current sincerity and his future flexibility on these issues, but his position for about the past five years has been reasonable on a whole lot of issues. I trust Cruz completely, to remain conservative for life, but I am concerned about trying to nominate Cruz, rejecting Trump on the first ballot, and then having a rules change that gives us Kasich. Of the viable choices, only Trump and Cruz are remotely acceptable, and both paths have more or less comparable risks.

My current goal is not to advocate for Trump over Cruz or the reverse. My goal is to advocate for civility on FR now and for unity in the general election from July through November. I don't believe I can convert freepers between the two candidates, and I have chosen not to try. I believe I can soften the tone and reduce the number of #NeverTrump and #NeverCruz voters, a group that would only help Hillary. Given the destruction that would follow a Hillary win, I consider that a worthy goal.

86 posted on 04/14/2016 2:32:50 PM PDT by Pollster1 (Somebody who agrees with me 80% of the time is a friend and ally, not a 20% traitor. - Ronald Reagan)
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To: Talisker
She's an economist who works with the highest level globalists . . . And all your lawerly micro-parsing doesn't change that one single tiny bit. She's a traitor.

She's an economist who worked in the Bush White House, where a lot of others worked. If her choosing to work for George W. Bush in 2000 disqualifies her husband, because you don't like the person she was assigned to work with for one year of her time there, then you have an exceptionally broad definition of "traitor".

My "lawyerly micro-parsing" was intended to show the details of the relationships you implied. The organizations you cited were ones that one of her White House supervisors worked for either before or after she worked for him, not organizations she chose to work for. The exception was one where she disagreed with the part of their conclusions that bothered me. Obviously I failed in communicating that, but at least I shared the facts.

87 posted on 04/14/2016 2:41:46 PM PDT by Pollster1 (Somebody who agrees with me 80% of the time is a friend and ally, not a 20% traitor. - Ronald Reagan)
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To: Pollster1

Cruz - and his wife - are running as conservatives. Heidi’s track record is clearly globalist. The strategy of globalism is the destruction of national boundaries through trade agreements. By whatever method, attacking the integrity of US national boundaries with the goal of bringing them down, is treason, and the Americans who pursue such efforts are traitors. Bush turned out to be a major globalist, covered by, as Cruz does, claims of conservatism. These are just plain facts. You want to call them something else, that’s your fantasy, not mine. If Cruz and Heidi and the Bushes had their way, we’d live in the UN sanctioned North American Union, not the United States of America, and our pesky Constitution would be gone once and for all. That’s their goal, and that’s what Heidi worked to help accomplish as an “economist.”


88 posted on 04/14/2016 3:51:32 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: Talisker

.
Heidi’s track record is clearly as an investment counselor, and account manager.

Your record is as propagandist and bald faced liar.


89 posted on 04/14/2016 3:55:58 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: Talisker

Can you provide evidence for this - about either Heidi or Ted Cruz?

Not evidence that someone Heidi was assigned to work for in the Bush White House was a globalist, or anything else that sounds like guilt by association, or even that George W. Bush was a closet globalist, but actual evidence that either Heidi or Ted Cruz are globalists or that they attacked the integrity of US national boundaries?


90 posted on 04/14/2016 4:00:16 PM PDT by Pollster1 (Somebody who agrees with me 80% of the time is a friend and ally, not a 20% traitor. - Ronald Reagan)
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To: HombreSecreto
.
Coming "Knock-out Punch:"

NY’s Herb London Says Back Cruz, Not Trump

One of New York State's most influential conservatives, Herb London, is urging conservative Republicans across the Empire State to vote for Ted Cruz in Tuesday's upcoming primary election.

“Donald Trump is the extension of a reality show and not a conservative,” London, who heads the New York-based London Center for Policy Research, told Newsmax.

Ted Cruz is “a genuine conservative who embraces and understands the conservative philosophy,” he said.

Source: NewsMax | 13 Apr 16 | John Gizzi

91 posted on 04/14/2016 4:02:42 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: Pollster1

Evidence, Surely you jest:

When did the Harvard trained lawyer turn into a conservative?

- In 1998, Cruz served as private counsel for Congressman John Boehner during Boehner’s lawsuit against Congressman Jim McDermott for releasing a tape recording of a Boehner telephone conversation.

- Cruz joined the Bush–Cheney campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser, advising President George W. Bush on a wide range of policy and legal matters, including civil justice, criminal justice, constitutional law, immigration, and government reform. There he met his wife, Heidi Nelson Cruz, another policy adviser who works for Goldman Sachs.

- Cruz assisted in assembling the Bush legal team, devise strategy, and draft pleadings in the Florida and U.S. Supreme Courts during the 2000 Florida presidential recounts, winning twice in the U.S. Supreme Court.

- After President Bush took office, Cruz served as an associate deputy attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department and as the director of policy planning at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

Globalists are not conservative. Cruz is a Globalist. Therefore hes not a conservative.

Would a conservative help draft Bush’s NAFTA bill?
Would a conservative vote FOR the patriot Act?
Would a Conservative team up with Ryan to push TPP?
would a conservative vote FOR TPA?
would a conservative try to increase H1B visas by 500%?
would a conservative try to double the number of Muslims?
would a conservative side with BLM protestors against police?
would a conservative hand out gift baskets to illegals at the border?
would a conservative lie to his supporters about the fact the GOPe is providing his delegates and he will not win nomination?

WHAT EVERY VOTER NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT TED CRUZ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXcYCwaBKnQ&app=desktop


92 posted on 04/14/2016 4:33:09 PM PDT by Mechanicos (Trump is for America First. Cruz is for America Last. It's that simple.)
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To: editor-surveyor
Heidi’s track record is clearly as an investment counselor, and account manager. Your record is as propagandist and bald faced liar.

Really? That's not what the Council on Foreign Relations website says.

Building a North American Community, by Heidi Cruz

That's okay, I remember my first beer. Of course I wasn't such a jackass about it as you are.

93 posted on 04/14/2016 4:49:07 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: Pollster1
Can you provide evidence for this - about either Heidi or Ted Cruz? Not evidence that someone Heidi was assigned to work for in the Bush White House was a globalist, or anything else that sounds like guilt by association, or even that George W. Bush was a closet globalist, but actual evidence that either Heidi or Ted Cruz are globalists or that they attacked the integrity of US national boundaries?

See my post #93, and do some homework before you start specifying demands for evidence. She's been very open about her globalism efforts, but no, as of yet, she hasn't worn an "I am a globalist" button. On the other hand, working as a special assistant to former World Bank President Robert Zoellick is, to many people, fairly strong evidence of hands-on globalism at literally the highest operational level. Especially when you throw in her similar work in the Bush White House. In other words, is not the evidence, it's your refusal to acknowledge the evidence. And I can't help you with that.

94 posted on 04/14/2016 5:02:11 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: Talisker
On the other hand, working as a special assistant to former World Bank President Robert Zoellick is, to many people, fairly strong evidence of hands-on globalism at literally the highest operational level.

If she made that decision based on globalism, she's an impressive psychic. She was assigned to work for Zoellick at the Bush White House for one year, long before he became World Bank President.

95 posted on 04/14/2016 5:44:48 PM PDT by Pollster1 (Somebody who agrees with me 80% of the time is a friend and ally, not a 20% traitor. - Ronald Reagan)
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To: Pollster1
If she made that decision based on globalism, she's an impressive psychic. She was assigned to work for Zoellick at the Bush White House for one year, long before he became World Bank President.

No, she worked for Condi Rice for a year until 2004. From 2005-2011 she was an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was a member of the Independent Task Force on North America that in 2005 published a report entitled "Building a North American Community."

Zoelick, on the other hand, worked with Congress to pass the Trade Act of 2002, which included new Trade Promotion Authority. He also heavily promoted the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Then in 2007, President George W. Bush nominated Zoellick to replace Paul Wolfowitz as President of the World Bank.

So connecting the globalist dots between the two hardly requires a psychic.

What requires a psychic is denying the plain meaning of their work together.

96 posted on 04/14/2016 6:01:38 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: Kaslin

Good article. Thanks for posting it here!


97 posted on 04/14/2016 6:33:35 PM PDT by octex
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To: Talisker

.
Spreading lies as you constantly do, you are the jackass.

Both Ted and Heidi have established a solid record of fighting globalism that is unequaled.

Trying to turn an internship that was simply a requirement for advancement within the company into a life of globalism is a lie equal to that of your Father Lucifer.
.


98 posted on 04/14/2016 8:43:38 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: Pollster1; Pirate Ragnar; KansasGirl

.
Trump is a better person for blowing steam over something he has no clue how to accomplish, while Cruz is more likely to accomplish it as a side effect of a greater good in his well reasoned agenda.
.


99 posted on 04/14/2016 8:49:39 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: LS

.
You shouldn’t drink while running numbers.
.


100 posted on 04/14/2016 8:53:01 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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