Posted on 01/17/2016 9:33:07 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
I do not just observe and write about politics. I got elected to office and prior to that managed and consulted on campaigns. I have read just about every campaign book out there. I have gone to campaign management school. I have interviewed campaign strategists. I have helped shape polling, advertising, opposition research, etc.
What Ted Cruz has just started doing to Donald Trump is a master class campaign performance. It is the model textbook example of when and how to attack.
Cruz, for six months, said nothing but kind words about Donald Trump. Every time Trump even offhandedly suggested something critical of Cruz, Cruz just laughed it off and gave Trump a pass.
For six months, as other candidates attacked Trump, Cruz stood shoulder to shoulder with Trump. It annoyed and pissed off a lot of people, but every poll out there shows it also had the effect of making Cruz the second choice for Trump's voters and Carson's voters.
As Carson declined, Cruz began rising further still. He held his fire. He kept laughing off Trump, defending Trump, and blaming the establishment. Cruz never took the bait, never got off message, deflected where he must, and kept building up his ground game while other candidates engaged Trump and spent days going off message squabbling in the press with Trump.
Suddenly Cruz found himself number one in Iowa. He also found himself number one in favorability among Republican voters.
When Donald Trump began attacking Ted Cruz, he was no longer attacking just anybody. Trump suddenly found himself attacking the most popular Republican in the field -- a position Trump was holding when former Presidential candidates were attacking him.
When Cruz finally responded, Cruz was responding, not initiating an attack. That plays well in voter psychology. They're better with a candidate defending himself than starting an attack. More importantly, voters are willing to give the candidate with the highest favorability a pass they will not give others.
This is just a model, textbook attack from Cruz.
There are lots and lots of people who think Cruz cannot win a general election. They should look at his thus far perfect campaign strategy and think again. He has stayed on message, stayed focused, and struck at the perfect time with perfect favorability.
Like him or not, it is impressive -- the more so because he is not using a bunch of Washington consultants who get on television as experts to run his campaign and make these plays.
I love when people are shut out by their own stupidity, then resort to making things up out of thin air.
Eric has figured out that name-dropping “his good friend Jeb” or Rove et al isn’t getting him any glom-on recognition so he’s trying to make amends to Cruz (before he finally has to suck it up and eat some crow for Trump).
He’s a no talent opportunistic putz.
Gonna book me a flight to DC on Trump Airlines on July 4!
I don't think the contrast is as stark, literally, as you paint it.
That said, the contrast on this point is stark! And it is important! For this office, the team is as important as the coach/play caller/boss, and it is the coach/play caller/boss who assembles the team.
Your post is an important perspective that deserves consideration by those voting in the primary.
Some will find that Cruz can and will form a capable team, maybe a better one than Trump. But it is important to consider the pool of "friends" that each can draw from.
Erick burned his bridge to Trump. Disinvited him from some shindig. Now Trump is going to rebuild that bridge, for free. What a guy!
He disinvited Trump from speaking at the Red State Gathering, a gathering conceived and run by EE. Invited him and then rescinded it. In the gathering he introduced his “good friend Jeb”.
Not long thereafter Eric ‘decided’ to move on from redstate.com (supposedly for growth reasons of some BS).
As far as I’m concerned there is nothing to EE worthwhile that warrants a second thought.
I agree with everything you said. On this relationship, Trump will not hold a grudge. He’ll be magnanimous when Erick stops lighting fires.
I have no problem with millionaires if they got their money through their own ambition, abilities, and hard work.
That, of course, excludes celebrities, athletes, lottery winners, and trust fund babies.
There’s not a damn thing wrong with being successful in life and there’s nothing wrong with putting such people to work as a president’s top-level executives.
And that’s a helluva lot better than the traditional way of packing the cabinet with political hacks, Peter Principle promotees, or EEO specials.
Drop the class warfare rhetoric, it makes you sound like a liberal.
I used to listen to EE everyday driving home from work, but after he dumped Trump I quite listening.
EE subbed for Rush a few times, but after he dis-invited Trump Rush dumped EE. Good for Rush.
Just like Erick hopes people will forget how he disinvited Trump from the Red State Gathering and invited Megyn Kelly to speak in his place. Ain’t gonna happen. I hope people stay away from his new website in droves.
I believe Trump and Cruz are still working together.
Poor Erick, I hope he is sitting down when the dust clears
“I cannot help but believe, particularly on the social issues, that Trump is fake. I know Cruz is real-especially on those issues.”
Is immigration a social issue for you?
from: Ted Cruz,s dishonesty on immigration
by Jon Ward, 12/16/15
“I have never supported legalization, and I do not intend to support it;” Cruz said, when questioned by Rubio.
In 2013, however, Cruz sponsored an amendment that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States permanently and obtain legal status, while eliminating a path to citizenship. It is very hard to square that effort with Cruz’s claim that he has “never supported legalization.”
That doesn’t stop him from trying, however. Cruz’s campaign said last month that his 2013 amendment was a “poison pill,” intended to undercut the main legislation and reduce its chances of passing. By eliminating a path to citizenship, Cruz hoped to turn Democrats against the bill. Top Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler repeated the “poison pill” assertion after the debate Tuesday.
Set aside for a moment the fact that Cruz’s actual sponsorship of the amendment demonstrates a supposed commitment to legalizing undocumented immigrants that he now says was insincere.
At the time, Cruz was far from coy, instead representing himself as hopeful that his amendment would make it more — not less — likely for immigration legislation to become law.
“I don’t want immigration reform to fail. I want immigration reform to pass,” Cruz said in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on May 21, 2013, the day that his amendment was voted down by the committee, 13 to 5.
I just dropped in to see how long it took for a Cruz thread to mention Trump.
Only 4 posts! You’re like the MSM - addicted.
sing along......
It’s closer to the truth to say you can’t get enough
You know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to Trump!
Knocking New York? That was “masterful?” Ted Cruz is showing his inability to hold the job—he would be a new Obama—all talk, all close the Government down—and little action.
That is on on line poll they are not accurate!!! Anyone can vote in them I did!!!!
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