Posted on 12/15/2014 1:36:04 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
To hell with the independents. That’s not usually the animating principle of a presidential campaign, but for Ted Cruz’s, it just might be.
His strategists aren’t planning to make a big play for so-called independent voters in the general election if Cruz wins the Republican nomination. According to several of the senator’s top advisers, Cruz sees a path to victory that relies instead on increasing conservative turnout; attracting votes from groups — including Jews, Hispanics, and Millennials — that have tended to favor Democrats; and, in the words of one Cruz strategist, “not getting killed with independents.”
Twenty-three months from the presidential election, it seems all but a given that the freshman senator, who has been in Congress just two years, will mount a bid for the White House. “He’s looking at the race very seriously,” says a senior adviser, who confirms that Cruz’s campaign headquarters would be based in Houston. Cruz strategists see a way to win both the nomination and the general election. They are assiduously cultivating the party’s top-dollar donors, almost all of whom remain uncommitted. Internally, the senator has shaken up his staff to address problems and to set the stage for a presidential bid. All that’s left, it seems, is an official announcement.
It’s almost conventional wisdom now that presidential candidates woo the party faithful in primary contests and tack to the middle in the general election to attract more-moderate voters. Not Cruz......
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Go, Cruz, GO!!
I’d have to say he is definitely my guy for this. I really don’t see anyone else like him.
This strategy for winning is a good idea.
It’s already raised some hackles in the article’s comment section.
IIRC he used the word “corrupt,” to describe defeated, self-serving members voting for bills that their new bosses on K Street have lobbied for.
Cruz will continue to turn up the heat on a thoroughly corrupt government which is unfit for a free people.
Even the most dimwitted moderate independent voters have figured out the left path is destruction.
Sounds like an odd strategy.
Rally the base and attract voters that normally vote for the other side while ignoring independents.
Wait, what?
Wouldn’t rally the base and independents leaning your way make more sense? I consider myself an independent, for instance. I’m easily rallied.
To hell with the independents
NRO is assuming all Independents are Leftists/Moderates.
The vitriol being spewed against Cruz by other GOP Senators is repulsive.
Their main gripe is that he made them work a little over the weekend, missing the Army Navy football game and entertaining their families.
And all over the unconstitutional actions of our President regarding Immigration. They all bitched and groaned about it when it was happening, but, God forgive, to ask them to work a weekend is beyond the pale.
Maybe Cruz is a little too brash for his own good, but someone has to put the pressure on McConnell or it will just be business as usual next year.
Obviously not making friends in the Senate, but unclear if it is working among the public. Lots of people don’t like him. Not a good place for a Presidential candidate to be.
It’s too early to dismantle a good idea - we need to see who steps in and how they pander for votes.
We’ve seen the pander dance in many elections. Wouldn’t it be smart to explain conservatism to the voters? Bring them to the table (not pander to what people think are the leanings of this group and that group)?
I’m watching - again - (using the NRO article comment section for my example) how posters come on to immediately undermine an idea (that worked for Reagan).
Either they’re not educated on the Reagan victory, or they’re hoping for a third party to elect a democrat in 2016 - or they’re GOPe and always at the ready to cut conservatives from the field.
You’ve summed up a lot of the problems.
Elected officials that don’t want to work for the people.
Cruz being labeled “brash” - that is how people have been conditioned to see him - how the MSM and the GOPe continue to characterize him.
If Cruz makes “friends” in the Senate - that means he has to do what the leadership tells him.
So he needs to reach out to the people - like Reagan did.
...Sooo , “Hes looking at the race very seriously”...WE are very seriously looking at his race as well !!! Apparently Rafael{Ted}Cruz and Obama have several things in common.
He is both multi racial and foreign born[Canada}whose mother was white and whose father is a Cuban that fought with Castro in the Communist Revolution.
Rafael{Ted}Cruz has a disdain for the CIA and probably the rest of our nations special agencies as well.
The United States of America has a very stringent policy on who we allow to obtain a Top Secret{Cosmic} Clearance and that being said makes me wonder if this Senator from Texas could cut the muster , and NO , I don’t need a bunch of elected officials in black robes to interpret the 2nd Amendment for me , much less tell me the definition of “Native Born”.
If the article is accurate (on which I have my doubts), Cruz is planning to skip #2 and concentrate on #3.
Which sounds really stupid to me.
Also impossible. Any campaign that appealed to any significant number of Democratic voters would almost certainly draw in a larger number of independents.
He would sure provide a breath of fresh air in the current field.
The four that come to mind this election are Senators Cotton and Ernst and Reps Love and Brat, and there are others. They ran conservative and did quite well.
People want something to hope for. They want a road map to the future, with the barricades removed. Perhaps constitutional conservatives in the HOR and US Senate have a critical mass to do that. Cruz's maneuvers outed the backstabbers, so it just might be an excellent time to get the message across.
Much of conservatism is rooted in plain old common sense.
Those principles stated clearly will automatically attract people from the mushy middle.
Once they start to hear the message coming directly from Cruz (rather than being filtered, distorted, lied about, and corrupted by the MSM/DNC/RNC propaganda machine), they will begin to wake up.
People are not happy about where this country is going.
Once they realize that they are being offered a true alternative to the status quo, Cruz won’t have to go looking for them. They will find him.
It could word, depending on who is opponent is. He would need someone like Hillary who would not necessarily energize her own base and possibly result in a lower than normal turnout.
The GE Years: What Made Reagan Reagan [Newt said this book explained Ronald Reagan's leadership]
Bump!
The Democrats are going to do EVERYTHING they can to keep the WH - Hillary or Warren - they will get behind the DNC winner like nobody’s business.
They will work day and night to depress GOP voters and keep them away from the polls.
We need someone who can articulate that bright line between socialism and freedom.
I think more and more Americans (and the world) are waking up to what is at stake in 2016.
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