Let's be honest, folks ... if the Democrats had come up with a presidential candidate from the U.S. Senate whose biggest accomplishments were "challenging his party's leadership" and "moving the debate," they'd have a guy who sounds an awful lot like Joe Lieberman -- a complete loser.
I think Cruz would be a great president (unlike Lieberman). The important thing, though, is whether he can convince 70+ million voters that he'd be a great president. He's probably going to need much more than "moving the debate" to climb that hill.
Moving the debate is how candidates win
The Democrats are a coalition of minorities who want to use Fed Gov to tax the hated white, Christian and heterosexual male (at least those among them who are, like me, just pleased as punch to be all of those things) and to transfer those tax dollars to themselves. We all know that. We need to start saying that.
Mitt Romney was right about the 47%. He might not have identified the members of the Democratic Extortion Coalition with complete accuracy, but generally speaking his observation that the Rats have an absolute lock on a little under 50% of the national vote is spot-on.
Now with illegal immigration proceeding unchecked with Obama it seems clear that the Rats will achieve - may have achieved already - an absolute national majority that will vote for them no matter what horrors they commit so long as they can count on the Rats to keep the hated white, Christian and heterosexual male paying their way.
Which brings us (with apologies to T. S. Elliot) to an "overwhelming question" - are conservatives no locked out of the Presidency, even as they've consolidated local power?
I hate to say it, but I fear the answer is yes. And I hope I'm wrong, but I gotta say that if 51% of the population is willing to re-elect Obama after four disastrous years that we're pretty much S.O.L. on the national level.
If that proves to be true, then we will be faced with a terrible choice that most people don't want to look at. As Elliot wrote "Oh, do not ask what is it/Let us go and make our visit."
I personally have absolutely no problem at all asking the question. When I do, I come up with an answer that starts "When, in the course of human events . . . "