Ted Cruz campaign thread

Oh what a shock!

The Merlot Marxist & Tan Totalitarian J.B. attacking a moderate who has actually read the Constitution!

So sorry that Mr. Boehner cannot read at a first grade level...

If he could, he would realize that a government shutdown of this liberal monstrosity is not a political strategy - IT IS CONSTITUTIONALLY REQUIRED!

Boehner was not elected to get along with radical leftists.

He took an oath to uphold the Constitution and he failed, and failed, and failed...

Boehner is the epitome of everything that is wrong with the GOP.

He is the reason the GOP will nominate yet another leftist in Trump...

And the reason a once proud party will be forever lost.

>O

It appears that the GOP establishment is now resigned to Trump and thus a coronation of the Queen.

From your mouth to god's ear! ;-)

Polls in Indiana - even post Kasich - still show Cruz trailing Trump.

Voters seldom share the calculations of political operatives, so the assumption that less campaigning by Kasich would move lots of his voters to Cruz never made much sense, especially with just days to go before the primary.

I do not care that Cruz cannot get along in D.C. - I do not care about likability.

I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them Sam-I-Am. The problem is not that Cruz has low "likeability" but rather that he has shown no capacity to work with others to achieve common goals. Essentially, his fellow Republicans here regard him as a back-stabbing self-promoter without an honest bone in his body. When he came to DC as a staffer he tried to move up the "Establishment" ladder, but his unprincipled ambition was too much even for this town. So, he went home to Texas, re-invented himself as an "outsider" (albeit one with degrees from Princeton and Harvard), bought a pickup and some plaid shirts, and started his presidential campaign by way of winning a Senate seat. He's been a pain in the butt to Republicans in Congress ever since. It's much worse than being unlikeable.

I only seek a return to a Constitutional republic with an extremely small federal government as required under current law.

I'm pretty sure you don't mean "under current law" because that's what you keep railing against. I suppose you mean "by my interpretation of the Constitution" there.

If you can eliminate the DOA, DOE, DOI, EPA and IRS in your term, then you are free to creep around the White House crawlspace during your down time.

DOA? Do you mean Ag? Well, in any case, none of these agencies is going anywhere. Agriculture provides important funding for food-related research, as well as marketing assistance to an industry that is among the US's biggest exporting sectors; fat chance we're going to undo that. DOE is more important than ever because, like it or not, the world is moving on to new energy sources, and either we're going to lead (and profit from) that or turn it over to China and Europe, paying them for new technologies instead of selling those technologies to them. Interior (I assume that's what you mean by DOI) manages millions of square miles of US-owned land; even if you closed the Department, the functions simply would move somewhere else. I would have thought that the Flint case would show anyone with a brain that we need more, not less, environmental protection; nobody wants his/her kids or grandkids getting poisoned by stuff dumped into our air, water, or soils, as happened for generations pre-EPA. And if you didn't have an IRS you'd have to invent it because whatever size government you have needs to be funded, and someone has to collect the taxes. This is why even Ronald Reagan couldn't close down agencies (except for the non-paid Tea Tasting Board): they actually do things that most Americans want done, or that simply need to be done to keep any government operating at all. Ted Cruz couldn't close them down if he were President, which he never will be.

I think likability has really hurt Cruz & helped Trump with delegates. If you read political blogs & tweets - Trump is the more likable fellow.

See above. Add in the obvious insincerity of his every utterance, and it's amazing he's lasted this long. Trump fakes sincerity much better, but then he has even fewer fixed beliefs than Cruz (a remarkable feat in itself) so it's easier for him.

I will not vote for Trump because of his radical leftist views & millions of others will not vote for him for other reasons.

Please urge all your friends to stay home, or at least skip the presidential line on the ballot. ;-)

I do agree, however, that the personality of Cruz has hurt him with voters not simply seeking the closest ideological fit available like myself...

Most voters aren't all that ideological. Some years ago Pew identified what it called "Big Government Conservatives"--mostly Republican voters who self-described as "conservative" but wanted bigger Social Security benefits, more extensive Medicare coverage, and other social benefits. These mostly are working- and lower-middle-class voters who have not shared in the wealth explosion among the investor class, and actually have seen their own incomes stagnate or fall. Look at exit polls and you'll find most of them voting for Trump this year.

Perhaps four years of the Hildabeast will empower a viable 3rd party in 2020.

Why do conservatives always have to turn to misogyny when dealing with Hillary? It's fundamentally childish. That said, there's not going to be a "viable third party" in 2020, or probably ever. The reason is pretty simple: Our institutional arrangements (one President, first-past-the-post congressional elections) both encourage the development of two broad-based parties, open to takeover by any popular movement that can muster enough support. Unlike in parliamentary systems, we don't have a practical way of sharing power among three or more parties through coalition governments after divided elections. Instead, our parties have to create those coalitions before elections, and that is much more likely to result in a two-party than a multi-party system. There's an extensive political science literature showing why this is so.