Posted on 04/03/2014 9:04:19 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The Republican party has a problem in the upcoming midterm election and that problem is general un-likability. Most conservative political pundits are willing to concede that point, but one Texas senator has apparently found a new way to boost the Republican party and his own popularity. By combining some religious rhetoric with a little bit of “Reaganite” posturing, Ted Cruz is attempting to be the Republican messiah by playing up religious persecution.
In a recent speech to the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, Cruz gave a call to action to the student body that was couched in surprisingly religious terms. Sounding more like a Baptist preacher at a tent revival than a United States senator, Cruz said believers are called to action to protect religious freedom, ostensibly against the godless Obama administration. As he declared that religious liberty has never been more under attack than it is today, Cruz made a subtle case for his own leadership as speculation about a possible run for president lingers in the air.
Cruz also made the case for his own trustworthiness by saying that he is looking forward to telling the truth about events in Washington, a comment he made to reporters after his speech at Liberty University. More importantly, this kind of rhetoric is meant to separate him from other Republican hopefuls by implying that he, unlike other Washington insiders, is the only honest man in the race. This is a fact that Jerry Falwell Jr., the current chancellor of Liberty University, made plain. He commented that Cruz was bold and courageous in his work and was unafraid to stand against his own political party in support of the Founders’ original message.
There is no doubt that Ted Cruz does have his own sort of bravery when it comes to political principle. At the memorial for Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg, South Africa, Cruz reportedly stood up and walked out of the speech made by Cuban President Raul Castro, brother of Fidel Castro, the famous dictator. In a statement released after the event, Cruz apparently was showing his disapproval of Raul Castro’s policies, encouraging him to follow Mandela’s example and release political prisoners and hold fair and free elections.
Cruz’s father was apparently imprisoned under Fidel Castro’s regime, so the gesture at Mandela’s memorial was not only political, but personal. According to a story from Ted Cruz’s college days, he spoke to a business group in support of Castro’s revolution, but when he heard about what was really going on under the Cuban dictator’s regime, he went back and apologized for his ill-advised and ignorant remarks. It is moments like this that have gained Cruz a reputation as an honest, direct man.
There is no doubt that Ted Cruz’s reputation is well deserved, but what is questionable is whether his attempt to use that reputation to become the Republican party’s savior in the next presidential election will actually work. There is no doubt that the Republican party has suffered from its reputation of being the party of the rich, white majority. Its policy of voter suppression and inequality on taxes, as well as the plans to cut government programs that primarily serve the poor, has not helped that image at all.
Cruz himself was famously a part of that image, especially with his role in the government shutdown. He apparently sees no problem with his role in that event which adversely affected the American economy, though he is willing to blame Democrats in congress and President Obama. He also criticized Republican leadership, including Speaker John Boehner, for not standing with those Republicans who were attempting to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act, which he continues to call Obamacare as a pejorative.
That opposition to Obamacare is at the center of Cruz’s attempt to rise through the Republican ranks and become a true presidential contender. In fact, the Affordable Healthcare Act is his prime target in all the talk about religious liberty. Cruz takes the view that requiring businesses to provide contraception coverage for its employees is tantamount to religious persecution. Corporations run by religious people, he argues, should not be required to go against their religious beliefs. Hence why he can make such claims about religious freedom being under attack by the Obama administration.
There is just one problem. Corporations, no matter what their supposed religious affiliation is (or whether a corporate entity can be religious at all), employ people who do not share those beliefs. So is contraception coverage really an issue of religious freedom or is it an issue of forcing a religious belief onto someone else? After all, the separation of church and state does more than just protect religion from government, it protects government and non-religious people from religion.
This is not the overarching Republican view, however, which is generally supportive both of corporate personhood and corporate religious freedom no matter what, and Ted Cruz is apparently doubling-down on it being attractive to prospective voters. His speech at Liberty University is evidence of that. It is a strategy that seems to be working for the Texas senator, as people who were watching his speech have now stated their support. But is it enough to win the White House and pull the Republican party out of the ignominy it is currently wallowing in?
Judging from recent history and the larger American public’s general dislike of Republicans at this time, the answer is no. But it looks really good to Tea Party followers and the conservative base, so Republican hopefuls, Cruz included, will not be stopping with their overblown rhetoric any time soon. With the midterm elections coming up, now is the time for ambitious Republicans to start making their move for party leadership. Ted Cruz’s strategy is obviously to appeal to the religious base of the part as he attempts to be the new Republican messiah, but it probably is not enough to win over the rest of the country.
Another commie lib worried about the Republican Party while her party is out there like a bunch of vultures ripping America apart.
What happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas. Why in the world would I listen to a journalist in THAT town?
Same here. Conservatives have been referring to the Kenyan as the DemocRAT “messiah” for going on six years. Now the commies want to try it on Senator Cruz. The commie DemocRAT party will never be accused of being the party of original ideas.
Seems to me that Ted is not TRYING to be anything other than who he is. He is a man of principles. How shocking for this poor idiot that he has never met some one who says what they mean and means what they say
I like Ted Cruz, I really do, but I have a few problems with a presidential run. 1) He was born in Canada. 2) only his mother was a citizen at the time Cruz was born and 3) His father came to America at age 18 in 1957 but didn’t become a citizen until 2005. I just don’t see Cruz fitting the definition of a ‘natural born citizen.’ He’d make a great leader for Canada, tho.
Is it plausible that he would not have known of Castro's brutal repression?
I don’t believe Cruz used the words “godless obama administration”. I stopped reading right there.
Again? Really?
Is Ted Cruz a natural-born citizen eligible to serve as president? [Yes! And I support him! JimRob]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3084490/posts
Someone has him confused with his father:
Cruz’s father, who was born in 1939 in Matanzas, Cuba,[13][14] as Robert T. Garrett of the Dallas Morning News has described, “suffered beatings and imprisonment for protesting the oppressive regime”[13][18] of dictator Fulgencio Batista. He fought for communist revolutionary Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution[19][20] when he was 14 years old, but “didn’t know Castro was a Communist.” A few years later he became a staunch critic of Castro when “the rebel leader took control and began seizing private property and suppressing dissent.”[13][21] The elder Cruz fled Cuba in 1957 at the age of 18, landing in Austin,[18] becoming a Cuban émigré, to study at the University of Texas, knowing no English and with $100 sewn into his underwear.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Cruz
Lydia, please get off your knees, and wipe your chin. You will have plenty of time to use your pen to malign Senator Cruz.
5.56mm
This kind of snot-nosed juvenile slop shows the immaturity of the writer.
The writer apparently has Senator Cruz confused with his dad -- who fought against the Batista regime with Castro, then fought against Castro when he revealed his true Communist colors.
I've no idea where she got this particular story, though.
1. The corporation is only refusing to provide the abortifacient. The employee still has the choice to purchase their own.
2. The employee is forcing their belief on the corporation by demanding the abortifacient and that the corporation must pay for it.
3. Corporations have free speech the courts have determined. What about religious freedom. It is in the same amendment.
The employee also has the choice to obtain employment elsewhere or can seek employment with a company that provides the abortifacient if this is of the utmost importance to the employee.
That was either bad writing or on purpose by the writer.
It was the dad who did it.
“”His father, Rafael, as a teen-ager in Cuba, fought alongside Castro’s revolutionaries against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. He was jailed and beaten by the regime. “My grandmother said that his suit, which had started out bright white, you couldn’t see a spot of white on it,” Cruz said. “It was just stained with blood and mud, and his teeth were dangling from his mouth.” Rafael left for the United States, and in 1957 started at the University of Texas on a student visa. He continued to support Castro. “He learned English very quickly and began going around to local Rotary Clubs and Kiwanis Clubs and speaking about the Revolution and raising money for Castro,” Cruz said. “He was a young revolutionary. He would get Austin businesspeople to write checks.”
When Castro came to power, in 1959, the elder Cruz quickly grew disillusioned. His younger sister fought in the counter-revolution and was tortured by the new regime. Rafael returned to Cuba in 1960 to see his family, and was shaken by what Castro’s Communist dictatorship had wrought. “When my father got back to Austin,” Cruz said, “he sat down and made a list of every place he’d gone to speak, and he made a point of going back to each of them and standing in front of them and saying, ‘I owe you an apology. I misled you. I took your money and I sent it to evil ends.’ And he said, ‘I didn’t do so knowingly, but I did so nonetheless, and for that I’m truly sorry.’ When I was a kid, my dad told me that story over and over again. To me, that always defined character: to have the courage to go back and apologize.”””
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/11/19/121119fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all
oops. I guess I missed school last October. Cruz it is.
Maybe you missed the McCain and George Romney campaigns as well.
It’s only okay for Marxists and Fascists to have messiah’s touting utopias.
Conservatives are evil and therefore not permitted to have them - according to the perverted thinking of the Left. Only government is god.
Truth is - there is no such thing as a political messiah, whether it be Ted Cruz or Ron Paul. Our problems are a reflection of our character gone to pot. A culture become wicked - because this nation and people are rejecting or indifferent to the TRUE Messiah and find nothing worth standing for besides self interests and emoting pap.
They have listened to a culture and leadership both political and religious to empower self, and feed the self, rather than becoming self-less.
We need The True Messiah - Jesus. And not rest our hopes in men or their institutions. No man or party can save us from where we find ourselves.
We need God first. Repentance second and pray for a leader who is a servant of the Lord, who seeks to serve, not one who seeks to rule.
When we once again become a righteous people - then the people will rejoice and liberty will flourish. Without such, only misery and the tyranny of men will rule such a people.
Attempting? Hell compared to therest ofthe GOP he IS ....he’s the Chuck Norris of politicians....: )
> Someone has him confused with his father:
Typical liberal behavior to fire off their mouth before getting their facts straight....
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