Posted on 02/07/2016 1:49:19 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Presidential elections are about, above all, just two things: our security and our prosperity. Promises of prosperity have all but faded into the background... except by Donald Trump. In the last debate in which he participated Donald Trump hit the voters' target bull's eye in stating "I want to use that same up here, whatever it may be, to make America rich again."
None of the other candidates came close to featuring The Message we voters wish to hear. Prosperity. If the other candidates - most notably #2 Ted Cruz - wished to gain the voters' hearts, or at least votes, they would stop hassling Trump about his already very well-known foibles and flaws.
The blowback from Cruz's slam on "New York values" - when he could have said "Upper East Side New York Values" and hammered it home by pointing out that Trump brags that Hillary Clinton was a guest as his 2005 wedding - shows the folly of picking on Donald Trump's foibles.
Most of the voters are not looking to elect someone for their personal virtue. The voters are looking for someone who will get the job done.
What job? Job One: Restoring jobs and opportunity.
Shrewd candidates would make prosperity the keynote of every speech and every comment and every commercial between now and the end of the primaries. And, then, in the general election.
What is unfathomable about Cruz is that he has dealt himself a royal flush while Donald Trump is holding, at best, a pair of deuces. Cruz has presented the most impressive proposal in the field for creating a roaring Reaganesque recovery. Yet Cruz is not materially campaigning on it.
The charismatic Mr. Trump's economic platform is pure Jabberwocky. As Megan McCardle pointed out:
Trump's economic policy isn't really a policy; it consists of claiming magical abilities to reclaim the jobs that foreigners have stolen from us, and a ritual genuflection toward lower taxes. All politics contains some element of this, of course: Just listen to the Democratic debaters on stage claiming that bankers nearly singlehandedly destroyed the American economy, and that ambitious programs can be financed largely by raising taxes on a tiny group of ultrawealthy people. But this is combined with some vision of what the economy should look like, resting on moral and empirical premises about fairness, justice, opportunity and equality. Trump's argument is pretty much entirely "strangers stole your stuff, and I'm going to make them give it back, or at least keep them from stealing any more."
Hey. We voters are a lot smarter than the candidates seem to think! At least Trump is campaigning on prosperity. That said, as I pointed out here Trump's proposed tax "reform" has been neutrally scored by the Tax Foundation as a $10T deficit bomb (and skewed toward the wealthy). Hello Tea Party?
As to his monetary policy, as I pointed out here, Mr. Trump criticized Fed Chair Janet Yellen before she raised the discount rate for failing to raise interest rates while, in the next breath, claiming that raising interest rates was a recipe for "a recession-slash-depression." Come in, Houston: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Meanwhile, Cruz's proposal to replace the tax code with a 10% flat tax (with ample exemptions for working families), coupled with a Business Transfer Tax, has been scored by the neutral Tax Foundation as close to deficit neutral and beneficial to every level of worker, from us Gilligans to the Thurston Howell IIIs (and Loveys), across-the-board. Very Reaganesque and unsurprisingly so, having been architected by Arthur Laffer, one of the premier minds behind the Reagan tax rate cuts.
On monetary policy, Cruz has called for the gold standard, which I have called a very good idea and the best idea - for restoring prosperity - in the presidential debate. Cruz would be insulated from attacks by Trump because Trump has spoken sympathetically, albeit ignorantly, about the gold standard. Trump, on WMUR last year:
WE USED TO HAVE A VERY SOLID COUNTRY BECAUSE IT WAS BASED ON A GOLD STANDARD FOR IT WE DO NOT HAVE THAT ANYMORE. THERE IS SOMETHING VERY NICE ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF THAT. IT WOULD BE VERY HARD TO DO AT THIS POINT AND ONE OF THE PROBLEMS IS WE DO NOT HAVE THE GOLD. OTHER PLACES HAVE THE GOLD.
To indulge in the unseemly expedient of facts for a moment, America has, and by far, the largest stock of monetary gold in the world. Moreover, the gold standard does not even require particularly large stocks of gold. Prof. Lawrence White, of George Mason University, definitively has put the "not enough gold" myth about the gold standard, among many other such myths, to rest.
Trump's promise of a worldwide-depression-inducing tariff would be another albatross around his neck if only he were forcefully held to account. Such a Depression would not merely be Great. It would be The Greatest Depression Ever!
On taxes, money, and trade Cruz's proposals are sensible and defensible. Trump's ideas do not hold up even to casual scrutiny. Trump has a brutally exposed flank right in the heart of what we voters most yearn for (according to all the polls): Prosperity.
Apparently the problem of getting candidates to campaign on job creation and economic growth is a real classic. As Bob Shrum wrote in his unforgettable political memoir No Excuses (which I have quoted before yet bears repeating):
Carville was obsessed with keeping the Clinton Campaign on message. That was easier with the ads than the candidate. A pledge to "end welfare as we know it" reassured voters in the middle. The point of the lance was economic: Clinton had an economic plan, a health care plan; Bush didn't and you couldn't trust what he said anyway. But it was hard to channel a candidate who was a policy prodigy. Clinton's broad reading and interests sometimes led him to break out of the message box of his own campaign. I was on the phone with Carville one day when he said he had to hang up; the road was calling in. He was agitated when we talked a little while later. Somewhere in the Midwest, he said, Clinton had suddenly launched into a soliloquy on nuclear nonproliferation. There wasn't one goddamn vote in it, Carville shouted at me-a warning he had delivered, a little more respectfully, to his contrite candidate. When James put up his famous sign in the war room -"It's the economy, stupid!" - it was not just an admonition to the strategists and to the staff, but to one very smart former Rhodes Scholar named Bill Clinton. He'd never won one of those fancy scholarships, Carville told me on vacation after the campaign, but it didn't take a genius to know what this election was about.
To his credit Donald Trump is keeping his eye on the electoral ball - Prosperity! - whatever his wild swings. The other candidates are focusing on far less compelling issues.
To reiterate, presidential elections largely hinge on two issues: national security and prosperity.
National security has been well handled and the candidates' positions well established. I roughly divided the GOP field into three "tough doves" - Trump, Cruz, and Paul - two "moderate hawks" - Bush and Rubio - three "wild hawks" - Kasich, Christie and Fiorina - and one confusing effort to straddle hawk and dove - Carson. The polling strongly indicates that the GOP voters prefer the Reaganite "tough doves" over hawks. So let's move on.
Nobody can trump Donald Trump on "shock jock/Reality TV" style politics. It's pointless even to try.
Presenting a credible recipe for real prosperity is another matter.
Security handled, in the world of the American voters prosperity trumps. Will Cruz, Kasich, Bush, Paul, or another candidate come out of the weeds and relentlessly focus on what this election now mainly is about: prosperity... and who has the most credible recipe?
If so, will they do so in time? If not... here comes nominee, and maybe even president, Trump. If the contenders will focus on prosperity the nomination remains up for grabs.
Prosperity trumps.
I believe it.....just look at their posting forum history....There’s a real nasty presence here now that knows no boundaries, and it’s thick.
And by the way it’s not just here but at any social network....Trump has unleashed something vile that’s brought out the dark side of people and we’re seeing it daily on the threads and throughout the internet.
The fact it’s not being stopped rather increasing evidences what I won’t describe here....maybe for another place and time.
....”What is unfathomable about Cruz is that he has dealt himself a royal flush while Donald Trump is holding, at best, a pair of deuces..... Cruz has presented the most impressive proposal in the field for creating a roaring Reaganesque recovery. The charismatic Mr. Trump’s economic platform is pure Jabberwock.”.........
That much I can agree on with this article....however Cruz is greatly underestimated in other respects and for that we shall see some real surprises along the way.
Have the people here actually been to any of Cruz’s gatherings in Iowa or New Hampshire?????.....the MSM doesn’t cover them because they don’t have the pagenty and showmanship Trumps rallies do, further Cruz would prefer they not cover them.........But make no mistake Cruz’s ground game is ‘formidable’ as are his volunteers working for his election.....it’s a stunning campaign and organized in ways that would make Washington look like childs play.
Well your post yet again evidences no substance...just childish play and name calling as if you’re on a school play ground or posting on DU, rather than “Free Republic the Greatest Conservative Political Discussion Site on the Internet!”....
The common technique of the Teddy Bares is throwing mud. But, it looks like it's getting pretty deep for you!
BTW, the Stossel show was quite revealing last night. It shows that Teddy Bare learned Obama's way of winning. Data mining to find out what kind of trite phrase to pitch door-to-door based on people's FaceBook likes. Perfectly legal, ya' know! But, sleazy as usual! Them "Constitutional Lawyers" must have taken some special courses!
The Book of Cruz
For the Lord has sent unto us a messiah from Havana by way of Calgary yeah unto the very gates of Austin.
We only have to believe and accept Cruz into our hearts and we will be saved and Cruz will heal our nation. Yea send him unto the very gates of the heathens in Washington. He will smite the liberals and smite the GOPes and yea even the RINOs, and yea they will feel his mighty power.
He will be seated on a mighty throne in Washington and the members of Congress and yea even the priests of the Supreme Court and the hoards of bureaucrats shall bow their knee unto to him. For he is the mighty Cruz and the Deliverer and Defender of the Constitution.
For the Lord has sent us a mighty naturalized citizen from Canada unto the United States to deliver us from our wicked ways. He shall show us the true way as none other. Woe unto those with New York values. For they are an abomination unto his eyes.
For unto him and his followers the Lord has shown the true way of conservatism. All others shall be cast into the lake of fire.
Yea only believe and the mighty and true Cruz will deliver us from abomination. /s
This fairy tale brought to you by Goldman Sachs.
We now return you to our regular programing.
Go Trump!
Oh good grief!...Grow Up!
Poor Teddy Bare! Got your panties in a knot? Go cry to mommy!
Still in the school yard I see...figures....(Yawn)
Any candidate who isn't taking advantage of technology to gauge the electorate is a fool.
At the very least, they know what to expect--like the Iowa Governor howling for Cruz' defeat because he would end the ethanol mandate. Another candidate stepped right up and said he'd increase it, and the GOP there got behind him.
So, if Cruz is sucking up for votes, he's doing a lousy job, while someone else' marketing department is working overtime.
blah, blah, blah, yourself.
The South shall rise again...to kick out Yankee Trump and sweep Cruz to victory.
You mean using basic internet marketing techniques like every single banner ad served up on your computer screen uses?
But, hey, we could always limit candidates to using Pony Express, smoke signals and carrier pigeons to send messages if you feel that is more fair.
So you’re saying Cruz should stop throwing mud and model his campaign after the saintly, always positive campaigner Trump who said Carson was like a pathological child molestor?
In the race to advance data-driven electioneering strategies pioneered by successive Obama campaigns, Cruz has turned to Cambridge Analytica for its unparalleled offering of psychological data based on a treasure trove of Facebook 'likes', allowing it to match individuals' traits with existing voter datasets, such as who owned a gun. ...
...
In an interview with the Guardian last month, Cruz said his funding and outreach apparatus "is very much the Obama model - a data-driven, grassroots-driven campaign - and it is a reason why our campaign is steadily gathering strength". ... http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/11/senator-ted-cruz-president-campaign-facebook-user-data
I would imaging any businessman in the race would use marketing data to the fullest, as that is a means to success at reaching target audiences.
As for Cruz' ground game being similar to Obama's, please note Obama's ground game methodology worked. It rallied people behind Obama. We might not like that result, but the effectiveness is undeniable.
If your neighbor buys a tool that works better than yours, and you don't like your neighbor, will you NOT buy something more effective just because your neighbor has one? America needs the best tools we can find to straighten this country out, and not using a tool because someone else did is silly.
I guess he should turn in his phone and use only pencils, too?
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.
Obama is called a “Constitutional scholar”. This doesn’t mean he is one.
A flat tax is still not a VAT.
When Russia saw we got nukes, they got their own.
The Democrats got their own ultimate election weapons and we would be fools to not copy them.
Claiming Cruz as your second choice is not believable considering your vast assaults on his character. So I don’t buy it.....Further, suggesting that Cruz is responsible for ‘destroying our Republic’ shows your utter ignorance regarding Cruz’s strong conservative and consistent history in fighting for our Constitution and Rights as a people..... But I will agree you are as you say “a vile commenter”........who might better remain on the Trump rally threads where you are aong your own kind.
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