Posted on 03/04/2016 1:33:29 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
In theory, Ted Cruz's best states are behind him. But at the Detroit debate, Cruz was clearly the class of the field and it's clear that no one should count him out as the delegate race moves into its next phase.
The delegate math is complicated, but the basic gist goes something like this: Donald Trump has a commanding lead at the moment, but it is not a given that he will reach the 1,237 threshold he needs to clinch a majority. Simply put, Trump has failed to break through the ceiling of support he's held since New Hampshire even as the field has consolidated. While he will be helped by winner-take-all states, where he can sweep full slates of delegates even with his plurality, he may be hurt by closed-primary states, where only Republicans vote. So his path is more challenging than it appears.
Cruz's path is more challenging still. But tonight's strong performance can only help Cruz--both with voters and with the party regulars who would play a big role in deciding the nominee should there be a brokered convention.
What Cruz did at the debate was make three parallel cases:
1.) Trump is a fraud who can't be trusted to keep his word.
2.) Trump is not either conservative or Republican in any meaningful way.
3.) Trump actually is the corruption that he decries.
He advanced these arguments not one at a time, but by interweaving them with specific attacks:
* He positively crushed Trump on the use of foreign labor at Mar-a-Lago. He didn't just bring up the fact that hundreds of applicants applied for these jobs but that Trump prefers to hire foreigners instead, but included Trump's line from the last post-debate interview where he claimed that these were jobs American workers couldn't and wouldn't do.
* He thoroughly prosecuted Trump on the question of Trump's off-the-record New York Times interview, which Trump steadfastly refuses to release.
* At the end of the segment on Trump University--where Trump's best defense was telling voters that they should "wait a few years" to see whether or not he committed fraud, Cruz flashed in with a rapier: "Megyn, let me ask the voters at home, is this the debate you want playing out in the general election?" It was brutal.
* When Trump went to his poll numbers--as he always does--Cruz was ready. Trump touted a terrible CNN poll showing him at 49 percent support. Cruz waited for Trump to double down and defend the integrity of the poll. And then he noted that this same poll also showed Trump losing to Clinton and Cruz beating her.
* When the Second Amendment came up, Trump made a gauzy statement of general support. Cruz then dropped the hammer:
It is easy for political candidates to have rhetoric and say, "I support the Second Amendment." But you cannot say that and at the same time say what Donald just said, which is that on the question of Supreme Court nominees he wants to compromise and reach a middle ground with Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer. That's what he said in the last debate. . . . And I would point out, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer are both Democrats that Mr. Trump has written checks to repeatedly. Any justice that those two sign off on is going to be a left-wing judicial activist who will undermine religious liberty, and we are one vote away from the Heller decision being overturned, which would effectively erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights. Amendment rights, but when you say you'd compromise with Harry Reid, you put that in jeopardy.
* Cruz's most devastating line was probably this summation:
I understand the folks who are supporting Donald right now. You're angry. You're angry at Washington, and he uses angry rhetoric. But for 40 years, Donald has been part of the corruption in Washington that you're angry about. And you're not going to stop the corruption in Washington by supporting someone who has supported liberal Democrats for four decades, from Jimmy Carter to John Kerry to Hillary Clinton. You're not going to stop the corruption and the cronyism by supporting someone who has used government power for private gain.
My dad, who passed away in January, was a Conservative through and through, but knew very little about the technical contents or details of the Constitution.And that's the problem. Most people (especially the nutter "birthers" who congregate here) don't understand the Constitution. They think it means whatever they want it to mean. It's easy to support an imaginary version of the Constitution when you define it to mean whatever you believe.
I can see why you like Cruz.
Of the four candidates on that stage last night only two are Constitutionally eligible to hold the office of president. BTW.... Great painting of NBF on the move. One of my favorites.
A useful delegate chart is now a feature at the top of Orbusmax, a US northwest Drudge clone.
BTW, I have this one hanging in my cabin: Sound The Charge
I kinda feel sad for Cruz
....after seeing your eighth grade posts, I feel really sorry for you and your retarded thinking. Get out that basement and get a job, those grocery coupons you’re being paid to troll aren’t really worth much, and you don’t use a razor anyway...
ymmv
Trump will erase all of the excellent points Cruz made by dubbing Cruz booger boy. The “voters” will eat it up, so to speak.
Dental filling.
Cruz won the Weakly Standard poll hands down. Unfortunately for them and Cruz the rest of us didn’t see that way by a typical wide margin.
He won’t win this election, so stop living in a state of delusion.
Trump flipped on immigration, congratulated Rubio for working with and compromising with the gang of 8, flipped on H-visas, and said “they will will listen to me” at his insistence on torturing and killing families of those we are at war with.
He talked about his penis size and continually talked over the others out of turn.
All that bears repeating. Ted Cruz simply destroyed Donald Trump last night. If it were a boxing match, the referee would have stopped the match long before the end.
NBF was without a doubt one of the greatest cavalry commanders in all human history. Wyeth's 'That Devil Forrest' was a masterpiece.
Cruz is fine. He simply annihilated El Trump last night. You should be feeling sorry for the loud mouthed con man from New York.
I take it that, like the Founding Fathers, you don't believe in a standing army?
"A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty."---James Madison
While polls today generally indicate that Americans think of the military in glowing terms (rightly associating terms like “sacrifice,” “honor,” “valor,” and “bravery” with military service), Americans of the 18th century took a much dimmer view of the institution of a professional army. A near-universal assumption of the founding generation was the danger posed by a standing military force. Far from being composed of honorable citizens dutifully serving the interests of the nation, armies were held to be “nurseries of vice,” “dangerous,” and “the grand engine of despotism.” Samuel Adams wrote in 1776, such a professional army was, “always dangerous to the Liberties of the People.” Soldiers were likely to consider themselves separate from the populace, to become more attached to their officers than their government, and to be conditioned to obey commands unthinkingly. The power of a standing army, Adams counseled, “should be watched with a jealous Eye.”
The fact that only a handful of officers questioned the lawfulness of Barack Hussein Obama as commander-in-chief is the proof of our Founder's wisdom.
And the list could go on and on. It's good to see Donny get his comeuppance.
Thanks! That’s very helpful!
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