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Title: Ted Cruz Is The Frontrunner For The Republican Nomination
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URL Source: http://www.buzzfeed.com/katherinemiller/cruuuuuuuuz#.bt3qarb5Q
Published: Mar 28, 2015
Author: Katherine Miller
Post Date: 2015-03-28 04:30:39 by Abraham
Keywords: None
Views: 809
Comments: 53
The next week will involve a lot of talking about the “wide open” contest for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, about the strong field, about whether the strong field is irretrievably damaged, about how there isn’t a clear frontrunner. This isn’t true. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — the true outsider, the tribune of the grassroots, the ruthless lawyer — is the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination. This is not trolling. This is serious. Conservatives vote in Republican primaries. And Cruz is really good at talking to conservatives. Even his enemies will concede Cruz is smart. And his resume is strong — Princeton and Harvard Law School; success at the highest level of American law; serious jobs in federal and state government; and an underdog Senate victory in 2012. The strikes against Cruz as a Republican candidate usually run something like this: He doesn’t poll well; the shutdown freaked people out; he can be grim; he’s not well-regarded among Senate Republicans. Cruz, who quickly replaced Jim DeMint as the most hated man on Capitol Hill, has been underestimated for what is basically a credential: Even Republicans in Washington hate him. Let’s work through the rest of this like a geometric proof. Yes, in the first big Iowa poll last month, Cruz trailed some other Republican contenders. But more than a year before the Iowa caucuses, presidential polls are just tests of name recognition. And so they tell us one thing: The Democratic field is very closed; the Republican field is very open. That’s it. Mitt Romney polls very well for that reason — high name recognition in a field of parity. There’s actually a much more important poll number out of Iowa, one that’s much more telling about the voters there, and bodes better for Cruz than anyone else considering a run for president. Check out, from this weekend’s big Des Moines Register poll, the top reason voters say Joni Ernst is worth voting for: No single issue has united Republicans more for five years now. No one — not Rand Paul, not Marco Rubio, certainly not Chris Christie, who expanded Medicaid under Obamacare — has fought Obamacare’s implementation in a more demonstrated way than Cruz. Clearly, he shut down the government in a ridiculous, nonstarter effort to “defund” the law. On Sunday, Cruz told the Washington Post that Republicans should “pursue every means possible to repeal Obamacare.” Merits of the shutdown past and reconciliation future aside, dismantling Obamacare has been the core issue of Cruz’s political career — he ran on it in his Senate bid. This was his pitch in 2012: “I’m not running as a lawyer. I’m running as a fighter.” The portfolio has to go beyond Obamacare, though. And based on the speeches Cruz has been giving lately, here’s the kind of pitch Cruz is probably going to make to conservatives: I will lower taxes, I will protect religious liberty, I will enforce immigration laws strictly, I will defend Israel, I will restore America’s robust presence in the world. Stumping for Republican Senate candidate David Perdue in October, he emphasized the Hobby Lobby case, the threat of ISIS, and immigration. He has a small library of failed legislative efforts to back these up. In print and on stage this year, he’s gone hard defending Israel. It all sounds like a lot of the conservative priorities right now. And presumably, these are not random choices. “As Sun Tzu said, every battle is won before it is fought,” he told Texas Monthly’s Erica Grieder, who’s written the best profiles of the senator. He was speaking of his litigation career, but he could have been talking politics. “It is won by choosing the terrain on which the battle is fought.” Then there’s this, perhaps the most important thing, and something that may surprise reporters who find him stiff and distant: If you put Cruz on a stage and then on the ground in the middle of a bunch of Republican families, he is warm, funny, and sincere. Cruz’s dour image might actually play to his advantage a little, insofar as it dramatically manages your expectations. I was in Georgia last month, outside Savannah, watching Cruz campaign for Perdue. Here’s what he opened with: “You’ve seen the news about people jumping the fence at the White House — the guy who jumped over the eight-foot fence in front of the White House earlier this year. The Secret Service tries to run him down. They finally catch him, and they turn to him and say, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. President, you’ve got two more years!’ This week, somebody again jumped over the fence. The Secret Service catches this one, too, and this time they say, ‘I’m sorry, Hillary, not yet!’” The laughter cut through the crowd — mostly families and older couples at a farm — and then turned to loud applause at the real punch line: “And not ever!” It’s, like, not a bad joke. He had others. He delivers them well. Ted Cruz can be funny. The biggest applause of the afternoon, though, may have been for Cruz’s bill to strip Americans who join ISIS of their U.S. citizenship. “You want to know how radical and extreme the Democrats are? The Democrats stood up on the Senate floor and blocked that legislation,” Cruz then said to a small gasp of a reaction. “Jesus,” one man said. Cruz left out the full details of the bill’s outcome: He asked for the bill to be passed by unanimous consent, despite the complex legal issue of stripping citizenship. One senator, Mazie Hirono, objected on reasonable procedural grounds — the bill hadn’t been considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee. It sounded good in Georgia, though. And Cruz is good in this kind of setting. He thanked person after person for coming to the event, intent and serious, posing for photos and talking to little kids like they were adults. And while Cruz kind of talks to reporters like a character in a 19th century novel — performative and clipped — his rapport with supporters is far more natural. “I just wanted to shake the next president’s hand!” one woman told Cruz after the event; a number of others offered similar sentiments. Cruz radiated sincerity in Georgia, and complex mental gymnastics aren’t involved to imagine it working in Sioux City, Iowa, or Spartanburg, South Carolina. He can fluidly shift from an emotional appeal to a one-liner and back. And if he exaggerates, if he leaves out critical details, if he turns the somewhat reasonable into the outrageous — well, Ted Cruz isn’t running as a lawyer, he’s running as a fighter. You can trust him to always fight for conservative principles. And conservatives are the ones voting in Republican primaries. 
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 31.
#2. To: Abraham, Jethro Tull (#0)
Gagged on that one. I admit being last one off the turnip truck, but that was some time ago, not yesterday.
It's sad that there is not one person running on a Peace Platform.
War is always more popular. It's definitely easier to sell at the commercial level. Remember, our government is nothing but a huge money-changing outlet. War is profitable, as long as it is, and as long as those making the decisions to engage us in war are far more insulated from its damaging and lethal affects, other than political unpopularity forcing them from office and into a job in the MIC or high finance that nets them ten times more, peace will not even be on the table as a discussion point. Besides, we have to make the world safe for corporate expedience ...., er, a, I mean democracy.
There were signs of preparation for war in the ME in the 80's, but it was subtle. The developement of the Abrams tank, Cobra choppers and other battle platforms designed for use in desert environments. The switchover of uni's from G.I. olive green to tan khaki's. The bombing of the marine barracks in '83. (false flag op?) The signs were there if you were paying attention.
Well, as I said, I distinguished between direct and indirectly. By that logic spending even a dollar on anything related to defense while not at war qualifies as preparing for war. As I said, terms need to be defined, they're too broad. That's like saying that the cops have been preparing for a police state ever since the force was around. Clearly not true although the logic is the same.
Obs was correct. Before Versailles was signed, German army had drawn up plans for the next invasion of France, plans that Hitler used. Japan was busy fortifying their new Pacific islands. The US got busy preparing Manilla Bay. All knew war was coming and were preparing. War is war, offensive or defensive.
I did not comment on pre-WWII. Otherwise, that's an incorrect statement. Germany's pre-WWII efforts were entirely defensive in nature. Germany had plans to invade France through Belgium over a decade before WWI even began, but that wasn't a plan to war or start one, it was a just-in-case thing. You really need to brush up on your history Cyni. Seriously, you'll never come to accurate conclusions using false premises. That's what the establishment does to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.
Obs was right. Such is written by those that were not paying attention. Blissful ignorance.
LMAO You're funny, you simply mentally disregard any facts that aren't convenient for you. And then you wonder how they pull it off nation and world wide when you can't even see through your own bullshit. It's stunning Cyni. It really is.
You're funny, you simply mentally disregard any facts that aren't convenient for you. And then you wonder how they pull it off nation and world wide when you can't even see through your own bullshit. It's stunning Cyni. It really is. I guess at his age he is doing good to just type anything somewhat coherent, much less comprehend what others are writing. Call it Alzheimers, dementia, whatever, it just plain sucks. I sure hope this is not the future I have to look forward to. We did have a time of relative peace from the mid 70s until the early 90s, and even now we are having a period of relative peace compared to the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions. The drums for war against Iran are beating louder all the time though and stupid brainwashed Americans that seem to love Israel more than the USA are all for it. If enough Americans ever realized that Israel and traitors in the US government actually did 9/11 then America's love affair with Israel would be over forever. That is why 9/11 truth is maybe the only hope to turn the tables on the Israeli firsters and save this nation. Israeli firsters used 9/11 lies for more wars for Israel and more control over everyone through the Homeland Security Department and the unconstitutional "Patriot Act." We can use 9/11 truth to overthrow the Israeli firsters from America forever. If we do manage to do this then the Jewish establishment won't take this lying down, they will try to do to us what they did to Germany in WW1 and WW2. Unless we declare all out war on them and hunt them down to face judgement, we will never be free from their shenanigans.
#33. To: RickyJ (#31)
We did have a time of relative peace from the mid 70s until the early 90s, and even now we are having a period of relative peace compared to the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions. The drums for war against Iran are beating louder all the time though and stupid brainwashed Americans that seem to love Israel more than the USA are all for it. If enough Americans ever realized that Israel and traitors in the US government actually did 9/11 then America's love affair with Israel would be over forever. That is why 9/11 truth is maybe the only hope to turn the tables on the Israeli firsters and save this nation. Israeli firsters used 9/11 lies for more wars for Israel and more control over everyone through the Homeland Security Department and the unconstitutional "Patriot Act." We can use 9/11 truth to overthrow the Israeli firsters from America forever. If we do manage to do this then the Jewish establishment won't take this lying down, they will try to do to us what they did to Germany in WW1 and WW2. Unless we declare all out war on them and hunt them down to face judgement, we will never be free from their shenanigans. As to Cyni, the thing is that he tried to repackage the same historical nonsense about WWII in another thread that we engaged in discussion. It's a classic say it often enough exercise in his mind. Eh, maybe you're right, maybe at 83 there alzheimers or something. He's a good guy, just a little misguided on a few topics. As to your post, good post, but you implied something that I don't think many here have picked up on yet, and maybe I'm wrong. But I'm thinking that what they did to Germany in WWI and that led up to WWII, economically that is, they are now doing to the US already. There's that whole AIIB thing that I'm not sure at all isn't being orchestrated by the shylocks. If so, then that would be akin to the 1933 global declaration by "Judea" to economically boycott Germany, which did happen. As to the lead-up to wars and the wars themselves, we've learned, from the victor's viewpoint for the few in this country that actually have taken the time to research it, that history is shaped afterwards, not during, by the victors. So historically the winners of any major future wars will be able to dictate the "truth."
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestThis is not trolling.
#3. To: Cynicom, 4 (#2)
#7. To: Lod (#3)
It's sad that there is not one person running on a Peace Platform.
#17. To: Katniss, Cynicom (#7)
#24. To: Obnoxicated (#17)
There were signs of preparation for war in the ME in the 80's, but it was subtle. The developement of the Abrams tank, Cobra choppers and other battle platforms designed for use in desert environments. The switchover of uni's from G.I. olive green to tan khaki's. The bombing of the marine barracks in '83. (false flag op?) The signs were there if you were paying attention.
#25. To: Katniss (#24)
By that logic spending even a dollar on anything related to defense while not at war qualifies as preparing for war.
#26. To: Cynicom (#25)
#29. To: Katniss (#26)
#30. To: Cynicom (#29)
#31. To: Katniss (#30)
LMAO
Replies to Comment # 31. I guess at his age he is doing good to just type anything somewhat coherent, much less comprehend what others are writing. Call it Alzheimers, dementia, whatever, it just plain sucks. I sure hope this is not the future I have to look forward to.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 31.