Posted on 10/12/2013 1:52:15 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
Sen. Ted Cruz trounced the competition in the presidential straw poll at the 2013 Values Voters Summit, with Dr. Ben Carson and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum coming in a distant second and third places highlighting how Mr. Cruz has become a rock star with grassroots conservatives.
Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, which hosted the threeday event, announced that Mr. Cruz won 42 percent of the vote, while Mr. Carson and Mr. Santorum each captured 13 percent.
I just spoke with Senator Cruz and he wanted me to convey to you his deep appreciation for your enthusiastic and warm welcome yesterday and that he was very grateful to know that there are Americans across the country who are standing with him as he stands for your values here in Washington, D.C., Mr. Perkins said.
. .
Mr. Paul finished in fourth place in the straw poll with 6 percent of the vote and Mr. Rubio finished fifth with 5 percent of the vote.
Right now, Ted Cruz is really the leader of the conservative movement, said Mason Griffin, 17, of Arkansas. He is trying to push forward and get Obamacare out and get conservative back and strong.
Others called the Texas Republican Reaganesque and applauded the way that he has stood his ground against Republicans and Democrats. He is not backing down, said Edward Szeto, 46, of Virginia. He is standing firm on what he got elected on.
The straw poll is one of the main events of the conference, taking the temperature of the thousands of social conservatives that turn out. It also found that those in attendees were most concerned about protecting religious liberty, supporting prolife policies and repealing Obamacare.
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(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
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Ted Cruz Ping!
Please let me know if you want on/off this ping list.
Please beware, this is a high-volume ping list!
Gee that’s funny. All of the RINO’s and the Liberals are claiming Cruz is sinking.
Cruz is the ONLY Conservative.
I am on board the Cruz bullet locomotive!
The statists were writing his political obituary today. ROFL
TED CRUZ:
ping for later
He is and he has to be prepared because the RINOs are going to pull out all the stops to try and destroy him like they did with Palin and Caine so they can prop up another RINO for POTUS. Like you said, they are starting already being the subhuman pieces of pig vomit they are.
Now you know why little Peter King has been running over chuck Schumer and John McCain to get to a camera to bash Cruz.
I’m sure once the electionearing comes about the dems will once again figure a way to crossover and help republicans nominate another LOSER pos like McLame, Dull Dole, or that everyday kind of asshat like M<<itt.
As for a true conservative like Palin or Cruz?
Not hardlyy.
Right now, Ted Cruz is really the leader of the conservative movement, said Mason Griffin, 17, of Arkansas. He is trying to push forward and get Obamacare out and get conservative back and strong.
That kid is not even old enough to vote.
I wonder what the final poll results would be, if Sarah Palin was included.
Larry Sabado, a VA Democrat, keeps saying on Fox Radio ad nauseum that the GOP hasn’t a prayer with people like Cruz who “won’t compromise.”
Carson can’t win black support; so he would not help such a ticket though we would like him very much.
Better forget Dr. Rand; he is committed to McC of KY.
He also would counter the race card.
[Right now, Ted Cruz is really the leader of the conservative movement, said Mason Griffin, 17, of Arkansas...That kid is not even old enough to vote.]
Yes, but he will be by the next presidential election. I wish I was that aware when I was 17.
Sure would be nice if conservatives would get involved within the GOP so we can change the election rules to help insure Cruz’s nomination.
Republicans keep nominating RINOs because of a split between social conservatives and the other two legs of the conservative three-legged stool, i.e., the economic and the national defense conservatives. We keep beating each other up with the result that somebody all three groups hate ends up winning the nomination by default.
And not just at the presidential level. It happens too often in local, state, and congressional races.
I fall into all three camps. I don't have a problem with nominating somebody whose passion is something other than social conservative issues, as long as the candidate is not opposed to our Judeo-Christian heritage and takes a conservative stance on key issues like abortion and homosexuality on which we cannot compromise. And let's not forget our Jewish conservative Freeper friends — there are very good secular as well as religious reasons to require that a Republican nominee be a supporter of Israel.
An obvious example would be that I'd happily support a war hero or a business leader who doesn't share my religious views but will oppose abortion and homosexuality on other grounds, promote basic morality, and appoint cabinet officials and Supreme Court justices who do the right things on those questions.
The great thing about Cruz is he seems to motivate not only social conservatives like me, but also the secular conservatives and even a fair number of libertarians.
Being Hispanic is icing on the cake. It will be ***REALLY*** hard for a RINO to object to a major candidate who stands a real chance of becoming the first Republican minority nominee for the presidency — especially given our demographic problems. Even people who don't share our conservative values in the “GOP-e” leadership know we simply **MUST** do something to make Hispanics into conservatives, and Cruz could be our best shot at doing that.
During the last presidential election cycle, Mitt Romney worked for many years prior to the 2012 primary season to become the presumptive Republican nominee, creating an aura of inevitability. The rest of the field ended up battling for “who has the best shot at taking out Romney” rather than promoting themselves on their own merits. The result is that we had a division between social conservatives and economic conservatives that simply **DID NOT** need to happen.
Very frankly, as conservatives, we went into the 2012 primary season with our pants down and got kicked in the rear end. Instead of organizing years in advance and getting a good candidate, we wasted many years while Romney worked hard and won the race.
That is a crying shame. With the economic chaos and radical liberalism of Barack Obama, we should have had the Democrats on the defensive from the end of 2011 all the way to the November 2012 election, and with a good candidate, we should have been able to win in a landslide, taking not only the presidency but also the Senate. Now we're all crying thanks to Obama's policies, and bluntly, it's our own fault because we weren't organized enough to get an early consensus behind a good candidate who could unite conservatives and defeat Romney.
I don't know enough about Cruz yet to know if he's the right man to be the conservative standardbearer in the 2016 primary season.
But I think we need to spend the remainder of 2013, and all of 2014, finding out, and if not, finding someone else.
The hard work needs to be done now, not in 2015. Let's learn from our mistakes and do it right this time.
Conservatives are a majority of the Republican Party in most key states. There is no reason we need to let the RINOs play divide-and-conquer games against us.
If Cruz is the right man, let's play divide-and-conquer with the RINOs instead. Let's work to convince RINOs who care more about winning elections than about ideology that even if they don't like some of Cruz's “radical” views, he's the best shot Republicans have at getting Hispanic votes.
Let's point out to reasonable RINOs that Democrats won key states because lots of black people who don't normally vote turned out to vote for Barack Obama. Cruz won't motivate Hispanic voters the way Obama motivated black voters, but in close elections, only a few percentage points wins the race. A Hispanic Republican candidate could make Florida a cakewalk, freeing up funds to make some other traditionally moderate Democratic states into battlefields the Democrats have to fight to hold.
These are conversations we need to have now.
Not 2015.
And not even next fall.
If Cruz is the right guy, let's get behind him now, and send a Cruz missile into the heart of the Republican leadership.
We can win this thing, at least in the primary, and if we don't, it's mostly our own fault.
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