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?
  

[kvanbrunt2]

But my wife is a Southern girl in a way, being born in southern Japan with a similar climate :- )>>>> is there a japanese southern drawl yaall?

[QuigleyDU]

Here’s the Cliff-note version: The more people see and hear of Cruz, the less they like him. People don’t elect someone they don’t like.
==

Bingo, thats it in a nutshell.

Creepy, Snake handling, politikin lawyer, never stood a chance, and his policies had nothing to do with it.

The fact he gets as many votes as he does from, even conservatives, is revealing of the nature of man, and why the saying, “There’s one born every minute” is eternally true.

[poconopundit]

Yes! The people who live in Nagasaki prefecture on Kyushu where my wife is from have a recognizable tongue. Certain unique words are added to everyday speech and people from Tokyo will say it's a rather charming dialect.

Now the southern-most province of Kyushu island they speak the Kagoshima dialect which is hard for ordinary Japanese to follow.

[kvanbrunt2]

it’s a rather charming dialect. >>> nice to know thx glad i asked such a stupid question.

[Mike Darancette]

Cruz should stop refering fo himself as “Lyin’ Ted.

[ripnbang]

By then it’s too late...trust your intuition...it’s there for a reason.

[fortheDeclaration]

The problem is that Cruz is a terrible candidate!

[Arthur McGowan]

Many, many evangelicals have said publicly, “We support Trump not because we think he’s one of us. We know he isn’t one of us. But we believe that he takes our rights seriously.”

Cruz has the simple-minded Christians who fall for Bible-totin’ and preachifyin’. The kind of people who STILL think Jimmy Carter, the abortion fanatic, is a “good Christian.”

[fortheDeclaration]

Cruz is a phony and a liar!

He voted to give Obama fast track authority!

[DrewsMum]

The evangelicals got played by Trump

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/27/caitlyn-jenner-toasts-donald-trump-after-using-wom/

[Arthur McGowan]

Guess what. There’s isn’t a damn thing the President can do about Bruce Jenner’s using a ladies’ room.

If you have a business, lock up your restrooms, and be done with the issue.

The evangelicals and the pro-life movement in general should have started demanding, on January 22, 1973, that the GOVERNORS nullify the abortion decisions of the USSC. Instead, they have wasted 45 years trying to influence the personnel of the USSC and get Congress to pass a Human Life Amendment. In other words, they have been trying to get the federal government which gave us baby-murder, to simply reverse itself gracefully, without conflict, without confrontation. Please, Mr. Hitler, shut down the death camps, like a nice man.

I care about the Muslims and Mexicanss streaming into the country. Trump is the only candidate who is even PROMISING to stop them. Those aren’t promising to do so now are certainly not going to do so once in office. No one employing Neil Bush, and accepting the endorsement of Yeb Bush, is going to stop the deluge of Muslims and Mexicans.

[catnipman]

“The more people see and hear of Cruz, the less they like him. People don’t elect someone they don’t like.”

This is EXACTLY the same situation with Hillary!

[trebb]

That's silly. There's been almost no flip-flop anyone's been able to pin on Cruz. Certainly nothing like we see for most other candidates.

He's "evolved" on several issues and then made some statements that seem to go counter to being a hard core Constitutionalist - trying to leverage anything he can even if it means going against (at least verbally) his supposed idealism.

He talks tough on terrorists and how they need to understand that an attack is a death sentence for them and possibly their families, then he chastises Trump for the "rhetoric" of making a truthful statement that Islam hates us. He tells Kasich that he can't reach the requisite delegates so he should get out, then, when he is mathematically out of contention, decides he's going to "keep fighting for the People".

There's plenty of potential issues with Cruz if one has been paying attention with his eyes and ears open....and that's without TPP and some other "modifications" of hie "core beliefs".

If he actually announces Fiorina as his choice for Veep, it will be a pure pander move and add a extra layer of crisp to his toasted condition.

[DrewsMum]

I agree with everything you said until your last statement, which is highly delusional and wrong.

Trump is not promising to stop Mexicans from streaming into the country, he’s promising to deport help them and them help them re-enter LEGALLY ahead of the ones already in line. Which he can’t do because that’s against the law. But of course rules don’t matter to him do they?

And there is another candidate promising to stop the stream of “Mexicans” as you say, and he’s been trying FOR YEARS. Not just promising. He’s actually put it into ACTION. TRUMP SPENT THE first 68 years funding the politicians who allowed the illegal immigration policy to begin.

The tea party was fighting illegal immigration back in 2009. What was Trump doing? Saying he didn’t stand with the TP, in the same breath he bragged on Obama for being “great”. He also hired illegals.

So you tell me THAT guy is the one who will ACT? There is absolutely no evidence of it. NONE.

And you’re saying the guy who has already ACTED on it, suddenly won’t?

Dumbest thing ever.

[Albion Wilde]

Congratulations! Bold move. You will love it. Living in Georgia for almost a year when Mr. Wilde was at Fort Benning was one of the happiest of my life. It was a long time ago. Hope things haven’t changed much. I visited again recently, and the people I met were still lovely.

[Godebert]

Cruz' s biggest problem is that he is NOT a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN!

So-called "conservatives" seem to care more about faggot's using the lady's room than preventing a Constitutionally ineligible usurper from gaining the presidency.

[poconopundit]

Yes, talk about getting your priorities mixed up.

Papers? Immigration papers? We don't need no stinkin' papers!

[poconopundit]

Why thank you, Albion.  Being raised on Cape Cod, I'm used to the cold weather.  But it's my wife who really appreciates the warmer climate and more casual life style we're seeing here.  It's something we wanted to do for years.

Today I'm a bit nostalgic because I fear Mr. Cruz is going to be quitting the race next week.  I know that he should have gotten out months ago, but like Low Energy Jeb!, Lyin' Ted has brought so much appreciated comic relief this election.

For one, he's easy to caricature.  So many odd things about him have become known: I fully understand why National Enquirer loves his Harvard Princeton fake-Texan Canadian Cuban Lyin' Cheatin' Delegate-Stealin' Basketball Rimin' guy.

So I couldn't resist a movie poster with he and Heidi in that classic romance shot.  Honestly, Heidi is a fine looking woman -- at least for a Golden Sacks globalist :- )

[DoughtyOne]

Nice job. I’ve seen some very nice looking photos of Heidi.

[fireman15]

Rush is in a delicate position. His brother has been all in for Cruz from day one. And Rush has made plenty of comments over the past year that clearly indicated that his preferred candidate has been Cruz as well. Rush’s ratings are down and his contracts with iHeart and Cumulous who carry his shows are about up. Both iHeart and Cumulous are in financial difficulty.

It seems odd that in a year when Republican participation in the primary is way up that Rush’s ratings would be down. Maybe we should all admire Rush for doing what he has been able to do to help out his preferred candidate who he called the best conservative since Reagan. But Rush chose to back someone which many of his listeners can see through and who has now lost. It is like the curtain has been pulled back and Rush has been exposed. I don’t know how other people feel, but I will never see him in quite the same way. At one time I never missed a show; I haven’t listened to him in months.

No one has sacrificed more for Cruz than Rush has, even if he did it a little stealthily at times. Unfortunately, when you back the guy who lost, you get no appreciation. Rush will be fine either way, and I expect that he will still be on the radio, but his glory days are now behind him.