Ted Cruz Isn't Triumphing with Conservatism Because Presidential Elections...

The Rush Limbaugh Show ^ | 4/27/2016 | Rush Limbaugh

[poconopundit]

Rush had a conversation with a Cruz supporter today.  [Check the full transcript linked to above on Rush's site.]

The piece is an attempt by Rush to explain why the Cruz campaign has failed. 

I've condensed the points Rush made below.  In his remarks today, Rush also heavily sourced and commented on the ideas of a Rich Danker, a former guy in the Cruz campaign whose article appeared on the April 24th Weekly Standard. 

So here are the Rush/Danekr points followed by my commentary:

• Presidential elections are situational and not ideological -- This theory helps you understand why the Clintons won twice and why Obama wins.  Obama's not even thought of as a liberal by people who voted for him.
  

  Sure, Obama's liberal to the hardcore leftists.  But the low-information crowd that elected him didn't think of him that way.  Obama was responding to certain circumstances at the moment like the Iraq war, and he was able to position himself in a situational way and not even have to run as an ideologue.
  

• Ideological conservatives are stratching their heads in this election -- For many people [Rush included], ideology is a single focus.  They write about, study it, and try to persuade people to believe it.
  

  And this year, many of them thought the closest thing to the dream conservative candidate was Ted Cruz.  But his appeal to conservatives has not been as good as you would predict.
  

• Cruz has followed the traditional conservative consultant's playbook -- You basically have one stump speech, you give it over and over again.  And the stump speech is regionalized based on focus groups and polling.
  

  Problem is: instead of the candidate being who he is, a consultant creates a candidate based on the consultants' polling.  And while all this is going on, the candidate never has a chance to develop as a human being, because consultants turn them into robots.
  

  And you end up slicing and dicing voters so that virtually everything the candidate says is geared toward an interest group rather than the electorate at large.  You're focus-grouping interest groups, you're focus-grouping women here, men over here, immigrants here, Hispanics there, you tailor your message.  Soon or later, this pandering turns people off, it becomes predictable, and worst of all, it isn't believable.
  

• Trump's approach is to not get caught up in ideology -- Trump says I'm going to win every state and win over every voter.  I'm gonna do as many public appearances I can.  Every appearance I do is gonna be a bit different, but I'm not going to overly regionalize my positions other than to connect to the local crowd.
  

  Trump understands that presidential elections are situational, not ideological.  The candidate is the one who best applies their ideological outlook to the issues of the day.
  

  And rather than announcing at every speech, "And I'm going to make sure that conservative values triumph in this country," you simply stake out your position on an issue that is conservative.  You don't call it conservative.
  

And here's my own commentary on Rush's points:

• Don't lead with ideology -- OK, I get the Rush/Danker point about not overly emphasizing ideology.  That makes sense, and Trump has certainly not played up the fact that we should bracket him narrowly as a conservative.  Trump's been more intent on explaining his positions on specific areas and not labeling them as part of any ideology.
  

• But what else can Cruz talk about?-- On the other hand, Cruz has zero experience as an executive.  He never served as a governor.  He's been a senator for only a couple years.  And he's had a few years of experience as a lawyer and Soliciter for the state of Texas.  Great.  But boil it own, Cruz has really very little to talk about except his ideology or his position on various issues.
  

• Voters are not keyed in on ideology alone, but also the man himself -- The other thing that Rush/Danker seem to miss is the experience and proven capabilities of the candidate.  These guys are only trying to understand Cruz's defeat through the prism of how the message is deliver.  There must be some error in strategy that caused Cruz's message to fail.  Cruz got bad advice: that's why he was rejected.
  

  However another explanation is that Cruz was not the consistent conservative he claimed to be.  A label like "Lyin' Ted" doesn't stick unless there's some truth to it.
  

  Plus, when you think of a guy like Reagan or Trump, there's a man of steel behind the words.  Sure, he may modify his position a bit, but he's got a long history of making decisions and maintaining a general philosophy.  For Reagan, it was being Governor or California.  For Trump, it's owning and running a successful $10 billion private enterprise.
  

  If you take away Trump's experience in the world and his track record as a successful executive and public figure, you're only left with 50% of the value IMO.  Trump's proven ability to execute is key to his appeal.
  

  And if Cruz sounds "robotic", perhaps it's because voters sense there's not enough of a man behind the candidate.
  

  And it's this crucial ability to execute that seems totally missing in the Rush/Danker analysis of Cruz's failure.
  

  I made an attempt to quantitatively factor in the importance of executive experience in an FR vanity: Excel Scoresheet: Who Should Republicans Nominate for President?
  

[pugmama]

Great analysis Poco. Welcome to the South. We moved to SC from CA. Love it here. Lots of level headed people.

[PJBankard]

Cruz never had a chance. Without Trump Cruz would have been gone long ago with JEB being the nominee.

Trump eliminated JEB. If Trump would have fell out after JEB was gone, Marco would have been the GOPe nominee.

The only chance Cruz had was Trump taking out the big players and Trump cratering. The problem is Trump didn’t crater.

[nclaurel]

Live in your fantasy it is fine with me. No one has to agree with you. Rush thought gang of eight was conservative too.

[sargon]

It's like I've been saying to people with whom I engage on Donald Trump (family, friends): while ideology is important in choosing a candidate, behind all of that, you're selecting about a person and their suitability for this office. You're choosing an individual, not merely a set of beliefs.

And you're making a judgement about what's inside of a person as well as what you see on the outside.

This piece, and its additional commentary, are actually quite revealing.

I think one of the biggest reasons that the whole "NeverTrump" thing has failed is because American know Donald Trump is nothing like the hysterical caricature that his opponents, detractors and enemies are presenting.

And in making that judgement, they are also passing judgement on the vicious, hateful individuals and groups which have engaged in an all out effort to personally destroy this man, a man all of us have "known" for decades.

Donald Trump is basically much more credible and likeable than his opponents, and much of the reason for the nation ultimately embracing Donald Trump as the nominee will be because of the fact that his opposition, both quantitatively and qualitatively, was so ridiculously over-the-top and Establishment-driven.

Ted Cruz just doesn't measure up as a candidate this time around. And jumping in bed with the GOPe didn't help.

And now he's a caricature, and his campaign has become awkward.

This Fiorina move is like a Hail Mary pass that a football team throws with on fourth down with 1 second left on the clock, and after missing 3 consecutive Hail Mary's on the first 3 downs.

I don't see how it could possibly do anything but make Cruz's campaign look even more desperate, and that's not a good look for the Cruz campaign at this point...

This is the conversation most voters (conservative or otherwise) are having around the water cooler at work: "Why is Ted Cruz still doing this? It's Trump that GOP voters want."

What's the deficit now, Donald Trump has received 3 million more votes than Ted Cruz?

I mean, come on!

Vote Trump

[Liz]

Another aspect on likeability; there's an old saying in politics:
"Not so much whether the candidate is likeable or liked; it's how much
the candidate appears to like the voters."

(His candidacy was DOA when Rick Perry sneered at voters
saying we were "heartless" b/c we opposed in-state tuition.)

Cruz's contempt never lets up: the voters reject him at the polls
then he appears out of nowhere unasked and gives a "victory speech."

He came in last in the NE primaries.....then names Fiorina as his running mate.

What will it take to make this guy go away?

[WhoisAlanGreenspan?]

At this time in our history, populism nationalism Trumps ideological conservatism.

After 8 years of the exact opposite. The apology tours, endless race cards and getting away with murder both literally (Benghazi), and figuratively, that's no surprise.

Ideology is something everyone has that is defined by others who think they know more and simply have louder voices than you do. It's a losers game.

Our last best flag waver probably was Reagan, that's where populism and nationalism meet Donald Trump's America Great Again, and people are buying that. I did.

[poconopundit]

Good analysis.

It took a lot of time to parse out what Rush was saying.  And I don't think he wanted to necessarily be as clear as I reworded his dialog.

I think Rush mixes up his messages purposely so that no matter who you support, it sounds like he's trying to support all parties.

But when you actually analyze what he says, it often doesn't make sense, or what he said was a swag that on further thought you realize is off the mark.

Rush and Cruz are on the same team.  They can't get enough of Golden Sacks, Globalist, and Bush money.  So they want to keep the gravy train rolling till the bitter end -- to hell with the good of the Republican Party.

[poconopundit]

Thanks.  You know, joining the FR conversation is a good way to get acquainted with what being an American is about.  I lived in San Diego when I was in the Navy 40 years ago.  Loved it there.

[georgiarat]

If you have not lived in Athens during July and August then you better get ready for a hundred pound humidity hit!

[chajin]

But my wife is a Southern girl in a way, being born in southern Japan with a similar climate :- )

Nihonjin, PK, or brat? (I'm a faux-brat, Dad was civilian working for the USN in Yokosuka so I spent teen years there, but I've grown to love western Japan more than the Kanto.)

[bill1952]

Come on, where are the brains?
All of the GOPe positions evolve from the 2012 loss when mitt was defeated handily while that same body politic expected an easy win over a weak liberal opponent.
The after loss position papers clearly enumerated that the loss was the failure of Inclusion’ not conservative ideology,i.e, we didn’t have a big enough ‘tent,’ and now must pander even more to illegal, gays, and Muslims.
That was an epic mistake that also indicates that they simply do not share our values at all, but are actually more like a uniparty than we of constitutional conservative values.
Understand that and all of the actions of the past 7 years, as well as the focus against Trump fall neatly into place

[WhoisAlanGreenspan?]

Just to make sure I've got this straight; this election and your screen name issues are situational and not ideological?

I get the election part and agree whole heartedly. As to your screen name I've been holding on to mine for so long it hurts but hey whatever, please look around you in Georgia and decide not to use the word 'peach' for anything at all. As a northerner who's been there please trust me.

People in Georgia name every street after peaches probably because...I have no idea! But it's very confusing to us stupid Yankees and I believe it's all some sort of cruel joke to make us feel bad about getting lost because of the Civil War.

Go ahead. Test my theory. Ask anyone on the streets in Georgia how to get to 2410 Peachtree Street they'll be real friendly maybe after they hear that Yankee accent, maybe not, but they'll tell you something like 'take Peach St. right down yonder to the left turn at Peachtree Palms St, and turn right at the pretty peach tree onto Peach Tree Farms Road from there you just turn right at the Peach this and Peach that until you get lost and ask somebody else who is friendly and eating a peach. It's a conspiracy and you walked right into it.

I'll try to remember to pray for your now decaying yankee soul. I can't help you any more, just please skip the peach stuff in your screen name.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

‘Sauna City’, huh?

[Zenjitsuman]

People who will be sorry they backed Cruz. Rush, Beck, Levin, Natl Review, Weekly Standard.

Terd Cruz isn’t a conservative, he isn’t for the right to vote. He likes to cheat and lie, so he likes Carcasses, voting for delegates, smoke room deals. Telling lies like he did with Doc Carson. IOWA you Suck !!!

[conservativesister]

When Rush didn’t refute Cruz’s claim that Trump & Hillary have the same view on gun control - I couldn’t believe it. Rush is so pushing Cruz - sickening.

[smoothsailing]

I was mighty impressed with Trump's foreign policy speech today. It was not only "presidential", Trump is acting as if he's President. He's already filling a leadership vacuum in DC.

Well said, and so true!

[ncalburt]

Well Highlands NC is a quick drive from Athens !

[ripnbang]

Amen.

[ripnbang]

Almost...Reagan was sincere AND likeable.

[combat_boots]

“I see him as an opportunity for America to pull back from the brink of one world govt which is where we are headed with the present uniparty govt which governs us.”

Exactly. Cannot be said enough.

“I see him as an opportunity for America to pull back from the brink of one world govt which is where we are headed with the present uniparty govt which governs us.”

“I see him as an opportunity for America to pull back from the brink of one world govt which is where we are headed with the present uniparty govt which governs us.”

“I see him as an opportunity for America to pull back from the brink of one world govt which is where we are headed with the present uniparty govt which governs us.”