Jesus Christ: You can’t impeach Him and He ain’t gonna resign.
Posted on 06/19/2015 4:35:52 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Speaking to a group of Christian conservatives on Thursday, senator Ted Cruz was the only candidate to dispense with his stump speech. Instead, his remarks focused entirely on religious liberty, which he said will be the central issue of the 2016 presidential election.
The speech, which Cruz delivered at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference, was indicative of the crucial role social conservatives and evangelicals will play in Cruz’s bid for the Republican nomination. The Texas senator has, during his three years in Washington, tried to define himself as the most conservative man in the race. Perhaps less obvious, though, is that Cruz is positioning himself as the natural second choice of social conservatives who are now backing some of his rivals, particularly Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, and the retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. On Monday, he made a political and personal case that he should be their man.
Cruz already has a large following among religious conservatives, something that was clear from the moment he was introduced. He received the loudest applause of any speaker that day, and the crowd roared with approval as he cheered leaders and groups on the Christian right, such as Ralph Reed, the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, and Concerned Women for America’s Penny Nance.
“I believe 2016 will be the religious-liberty election,” Cruz told the crowd. “Religious liberty has never been more threatened in America than right now today.” Throughout his speech, he tapped the frustration felt by many Christian conservatives that some actions by the Obama administration have put religious conservatives on defense — for instance, the mandate in Obamacare that employers provide coverage for contraception, a requirement that the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious organizations have found problematic.
The message was not subtle: The senator also talked about his own experiences as a litigator who has fought for Christian causes. With the Supreme Court set to issue a ruling on the legality of gay marriage, Cruz described his career as a lawyer and solicitor general of Texas who successfully defended religious liberty before the Supreme Court. He specifically mentioned that he defended the display of the Ten Commandments monument at the Texas Capitol and worked to keep “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.
He also aimed a broadside at some of the other Republicans running for president who, he charged, have not been as vociferously supportive of the religious-freedom law passed in Indiana, which sparked a political uproar across the country.
“I think Indiana was, as Ronald Reagan put it, ‘a time for choosing,’” Cruz said.
“More than a few Republicans, sadly, even more than a few Republicans running for president in 2016, chose that moment somehow to go rearrange their sock drawer. I’ll tell you this, I will never, ever, ever shy away from standing up and defending religious liberty, ever.”
Cruz was the last of three presidential hopefuls to speak on Thursday afternoon, after Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul. Both Rubio and Paul delivered variations on their standard stump speeches rather than exclusively keying their remarks to the crowd.
As Cruz sold himself, he buttered up the crowd, too. “The men and women in this room are going to play a critical role” in electing a Republican president and bringing a sea change in the politics of the country, Cruz told the people assembled in a ballroom at the Omni Shoreham hotel in Washington, D.C. He urged the audience to reach out to the networks in their states and help “turn out people of faith” on Election Day — even people who don’t always vote Republican, like “Reagan Democrats, blue-collar, working-class Catholics, up and down the Midwest into New England.”
Of course, Cruz is not the only candidate competing for the evangelical vote. Santorum, Huckabee, and Carson are all drawing supporters from among conservative Christians. But this may be one time in Ted Cruz’s life when he’s okay being runner-up — for the time being.
I swear, I can’t make any sense of your posts.
You sure seem angry though.
I would rather you quit being so goofy and start making some sense.
I think the point of the thread is to criticize Cruz for being too Christian, and that there is no risk of that with Walker.
Thank you for the post, both the column and your addition were very interesting. I am terror-stricken at our huge loss of religious freedom and it gets worse every day. Personally I don’t know whether I prefer Cruz making it a focal point of his campaign or Walker keeping it an inherent part of his foundation but not focal point.
Either way, I trust both of them completely with regard to religious liberty.
Is Cincinatus’ wife a supporter of Walker? If so, your analysis is probably right. Walker supporters look to cast their man superior to Cruz, both being pretty close in the polls.
This thread sure is a strange approach to it.
It seems to go right at the Christians and the faithful of the GOP.
Sorry, Moore may think he represents many evangelicals, but I don’t believe that. I’m Independent Baptist, not Southern, and I know better. Yes, we will be looking for that candidate he said we wouldn’t be. And this Mary Jo person - what on earth is “apologetics” and to whom do Christians owe any?? And yes, we better do some dividing.
I don’t want to try to write a long essay on this; it isn’t worth the time. I’m just saying these people are wrong, and they’re sure not the kind of Baptist (or conservative) I am.
“If you lack the backbone to reject judicial tyranny and fight for religious liberty, you have no business serving our nation as President of the United States,”
Mike Huckabee
I support Ted Cruz first, but Mike nailed it on this issue.
“Sorry, Moore may think he represents many evangelicals, but I don’t believe that.”
I am beginning to think that Moore doesn’t represent Southern Baptists either.
Thank you for making the point clear.
bttt
Thank you for taking a stab at it. I get your points but I’m wondering how best to insure (the approach to take/raise the odds) so that we don’t end up with another socialist in the White House.
Having the right convictions doesn’t help when you’re on the outside battling and not on the inside leading.
This is about campaigns/campaigning (they’re running to be elected president of the United States of America) and their focus needs to be centered there - fight to win.
I know that there are a lot of good ideas and good people in our ranks.
They see religious liberty correctly as crucial, so how best to make sure we have that truth come out of the Executive?
Just saw this and will add it to the discussion:
Bush and Cruz on Religious Liberty: Same Message, Radically Different Deliveries
By Alexis Levinson — June 19, 2015
“....................................In his speech today, Bush spoke of his record, saying he would never espouse the “politically correct” notion that his faith would not influence his political decisions.
“The end point is a certain kind of politician that we’ve all heard before, the guy whose moral convictions are so private, so deeply personal, that he refuses to even impose them on himself,” Bush said. “Well, that’s not me.”
But he at times seemed most focused on getting through to the end of his speech.
“We’ve always left things better for the next generation. Can we honestly say today that that’s the case? We can’t. But we can fix it. I honestly believe we can,” Bush said, and the crowd began to applaud. But instead of pausing, he continued speaking, picking up his pace. Though there was a giant clock facing the stage that tracked each speaker’s remaining time, event organizers took no visible steps to end a speech if it went over.
In direct interactions with voters, Bush earns rave reviews. But the former Florida governor has been criticized in the past for his speech delivery, and that was on display Friday. Whereas in his presidential announcement Monday he seemed confident and collected — if at times bashful at the crowd’s adoring cheers — on Friday much of that seemed to be gone.
The growing field of 2016 Republican presidential candidates includes gifted orators — Cruz and Rubio perhaps the most notable. Bush begins the race as a frontrunner, but his ability to deliver on a big stage remains unproven.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/420068/print
Jesus Christ: You can’t impeach Him and He ain’t gonna resign.
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