Posted on 03/24/2015 6:57:07 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Welcome to Thunderdome, Ted Cruz! And wow, that’s a video straight out of the consultant minds of Veep. Maybe throw in a puppy? Seriously, though, if announcing via Twitter is the new thing, I’m all for it. It could’ve saved us sending a reporter to Lynchburg this morning. Maybe somebody will announce via Meerkat and we can all stay at our desks and not drive somewhere to see candidates give the same speech they gave at CPAC but with a couple more paragraphs? It’d save us all a lot of time and it’d be environmentally friendly, too. Lower your carbon footprint: announce by Tweet.
The Acela corridor mindset about Ted Cruz is basically: “he has no path”, “why is he doing this”, or “he’s a disruptive pain in the butt and should shut up and go away”. Allow me to quote one of the emails I received last night on this topic: “he’s a disruptive pain in the butt and should shut up and go away”. Yes, I understand that Cruz’s approach to politics and speechmaking rubs some people the wrong way, but there is actually a counterintuitive case to be made that he has a clearer path to the nomination than his critics might like.
First: Ted Cruz matches up with the activist base better than any other significant candidate in a long time. I don’t think people outside of that base really understand how powerful Cruz’s appeal is to the populist energized conservative voter, which is of course just a faction of the right, but is a sizable faction. Cruz’s critics need to hope that he is limited to this faction, and incapable of appealing outside of it. But that may not prove to be the case,
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
This is a state-by-state situation...not a national system which the news media tries to portray. From mid-summer onto early March 2016....there’s supposedly nine total debates scheduled.
The problem I see is that debate-wise...it’s a different crowd than in 2007 (an exceptionally weak crowd, with McCain in the middle). Cruz, Walker and Christie are four-star debate players. Ben Nelson might throw out some great ideas and attract some attention...but state-by-state, he can’t get past the three-percent point.
Jeb Bush isn’t exactly great at debates (better than average). If this was a marginal group....he’d do OK. I see his issues being low interest throughout the south except for Florida, and a 15-percent winner in Iowa at best.
Rand Paul is there to stir interest among the Tea Party folks but that’s mostly Cruz’s territory and I think Paul will be finished by late January. Rick Perry will take Texas and little else (he’s a VP player at this point). And I think Christies interest is strictly in getting the AG position.
Bush may think he holds some interest nationally...but once you go state-by-state in the primary season...he’s got limited potential. In a hot debate....with Cruz on turbo...I think he can take down Bush on several fronts.
I look back over History and how Taft never really wanted the Presidency or AG position...he was after the Supreme Court seat. Maybe Cruz sees himself angling toward this goal for himself.
Debate-wise....there’s going to be fantastic episodes coming up for the Republicans. All worthy of recording and keeping for future reminders.
Yep. Now that Cruz has declared himself a candidate, Walker should state: " There's only room for ONE real conservative in the Republican primary. We need to unite RIGHT NOW, early, behind Cruz -- I'll save my run for 2020 or 2024."
There are only two Republicans on the radar that I see who compete for Cruz's voters. One is Sarah Palin, and I doubt she would enter the race after Cruz has declared because she wants to HELP him. The other is Scott Walker. Walker isn't going to pull primary votes away from Jeb, Christie, or any other GOPe candidate. He will pull votes away from Cruz. And thus split, because conservative Republicans failed to unite early behind a single candidate, the primary votes such that a GOPe candidate walks away with the nomination.
Women don't vote monolithically, and besides Reagan did not have a woman problem.
Just think about all the women who voted for Obama and their lives did not magically get better the way he promised it would.
Cruz will get the votes of disaffected Obama voters, because once they know the truth they will not settle for second best.
They will go for the person who speaks the clearest truth.
They will not settle for a McCain or a Jeb.
I will venture to call them "Cruz Democrats."
You can’t count on winning the women’s vote. Too many vote their emotions and go Democrat. Of course there are exceptions, but the hard truth is that if women didn’t vote, there would never be a Democrat elected again. He’ll, look how many voted twice for a proven rapist scumbag - slick willie. Lost cause.
“Rick Perry will take Texas and little else (he’s a VP player at this point).”
Ummm... No. Rick Perry will NEVER take Texas now that Cruz is on the scene. Cruz is immensely popular in Texas, much more so than Perry could ever hope to be.
I'll believe that if you'll explain to me how Cruz got a lower percentage of the Texas vote in Nov 2012 than the Massachusetts Godfather of Obamacare that none of us FReepers liked at all.
I think he has a shot at getting more evangelicals to vote and turn out in huge numbers compared to the others. If this religious base actually votes, instead of staying at home like they usually do, then you could win a lot of the states in a landslide.
” Walker needs to punt. He is a nice guy but it is time to clear the decks.”
Amen! We will soon see if Walker, Perry, Paul, and others besides Bush truly have the country’s self interests or their OWN self interest as a priority. And for any of them who insist on staying in and splitting the primary votes like they did last time, I will have a very long memory for their selfishness.
Having said that, it will be up to the conservative base to make an early and overwhelming show of support for Cruz, making it very hard for the other wanna-be’s to stay in the primary race without looking like an idiot in denial or an out-and-out selfish jackass. Cruz just said on Megan Kelly’s show that he has already received $1 million in the first day. Let’s make it $2 million!!
I don’t under your question and what were the percentages? And are you comparing TEXAS with the national level?
Understand
Mediocre Massachusetts Mitt got 57% of the POTUS votes in Texas in 2012.
Cruz got 56% of the Senate votes in Texas in 2012.
97% of the folks on FR agree Mediocre Mitt was a lousy candidate.
It just doesn’t appear to me that Cruz was “immensely popular”, that’s all.
Why are you under the impression that women vote as a monolithic group and do not have the ability to reason?
Don't make the mistake that the libs do and check off the women as those people already in their camp because they have the right "women" parts.
You’re talking about a 1% difference? Where are you getting those stats, because i didn’t know Cruz’s number was that high.
And what do Texans have to do with FR? I made a statement about Cruz’s popularity among Texans, not Mittens’ popularity among FReepers.
“It just doesn’t appear to me that Cruz was “immensely popular”, that’s all.”
I said “is,” not “was.” You’re also mixing time periods.
“but the hard truth is that if women didn’t vote, there would never be a Democrat elected again”
You can’t be serious! There are a lot of male democrats. There are a lot of female conservatives. That statement is absurd.
Honestly, wouldn't you expect a beloved Texas legend to do WAY BETTER than a "hold your nose" RINO candidate from Massachusetts who was the Godfather of Obamacare?
Evidently, you aren't seeing my questions so I'm going to make this very easy for you and repeat them in a list format. Heck, I'll even throw in some extra explanations of my original questions, just to be sure you understand. All of these questions are asking for you to explain your original statement to me up in #46. Until this is done, we cannot progress. I will let you make that call.
My questions:
If you want to address those 4 questions, I'll be happy to continue this conversation and maybe we can get somewhere.1. You’re talking about a 1% difference?
(This one is a no-brainer, so I will presume your answer is "yes.")2. Where are you getting those stats, because i didn’t know Cruz’s number was that high.
( Do you have a source for your statistics? Do you have a reference you can cite for this? On Hannity yesterday, Cruz said he took 40% of the Hispanic vote for the Senate race, which is rather high, especially when you compare that with Romney's 20-something% of the nationwide Hispanic vote. But hey, I don't want to confuse you, so again... Where did you get those statistics you cited in #46?)3. And what do Texans have to do with FR? I made a statement about Cruz’s popularity among Texans, not Mittens’ popularity among FReepers.
(Again, how are Texans related to Freepers in this context? Please make that connection in simple language. I'm sure I'll understand.)4. I said “is,” not “was.” You’re also mixing time periods.
(To be exact, my statement was: "Cruz is immensely popular in Texas, much more so than Perry could ever hope to be."
The word "is" deals with present tense. Present tense uses the word "is," not "was." I am talking about how popular Cruz is now, and you want to discuss his popularity several years ago at his Senate race. You know, this point ALONE nullifies everything you are saying to me. You realize that, don't you?)
If you don't (or can't) answer these basic questions about your original statement, please tell me why I should continue this discussion. 'Cause I just ain't seeing it.
The vote numbers were from here
http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/
I made the assumption that if most FReepers thought MassMitt was a lousy candidate, most Texas Republicans would also.
That leads to the assumption that a really “popular” candidate in Texas should do better than Romney.
If that’s flawed logic, we’ll agree to disagree.
11 months from now we’ll know who the studs and duds are for sure.
Thanks for the link. I’ll be bookmarking that, for sure.
I guess we’ll just agree to disagree. As you say, we should know in a few months if Cruz is up to the task of getting his message out and standing up to the garbage that both sides will be hurling at him. Judging from his Texas race against RINO Dewhurst, he’ll live up to my expectations. He was the underdog in that primary, but he has the courage of his convictions and came from behind, beating Dewhurst against all the odds. Once he got to the general election, many conservatives stayed home, assured that Cruz would slide past Dem Paul Sadler easily without their help. They were right. Still made me nervous, though.
Actually i think evangelicals vote in larger numbers than other groups, and more conservatively (and much more than atheist types), even though the national choices have not been too inspiring.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.