Bet you didn’t know this about Ted Cruz
I didn’t know it either. Take a look.
I was talking to a liberal (but not at all doctrinaire) friend the other day, and she brought up the Republican candidates and asked my opinion on them. She’s not keen on Hillary or Sanders, and is taking a look at the Republicans. As I spoke, it became clear that all she knew about Cruz so far was the MSM hype (and the Trump hype, I might add) about him: “everybody hates him.” When I explained some of his experience, and some of the laudable traits I see in him, she was both impressed and surprised.
Cruz has been demonized by the MSM for several years now, and it’s sunk in. I don’t think it’s insurmountable, and I don’t think he’s “unelectable.” But there’s quite a bit that would need to be overcome.
Have no doubt that not only do the Dems want to demonize Ted but so does the establishment GOP. I don’t think Marco is that much of an establishment guy but they want him and think they can control him in the WH. Ted knows that and has made many comparisons to himself and RWR. I expect more stuff like the piece Neo linked.
Rubio plays the JFK card as I noted in my first Power Line piece. Marco also makes references to Reagan.
This is my biggest concern with Cruz. He definitely has an uphill battle with the general election voters, arguably even more of one than Trump may have. The popular perception of him seems to be very negative.
For example: Apparently SNL did a parody of him this past week where he referred to himself as a “sneaky little stinker” and a “nasty little weasel”. Yeah, yeah… I know – it’s just the typical liberal leaning SNL writers. Who cares? But these things all get mixed into the zeitgeist and help form a perception among LIVs.
I already knew that he did a good job at the FTC but the details make him also appear to be a consensus-builder for conservative principles – now that’s impressive. If given half a chance, he can articulate the positive philosophy of conservatism as intelligently as Reagan; he just doesn’t have that aw-shucks charisma.
There is something alarming at that link though. The comment section quickly devolved into a screed from birthers, attacks on Cruz’ wife, and charges he’s a Dominionist. Lots of brand spanking new disqus profiles too. The infection of PJ Media by Trumpers is in progress.
I like Cruz’s principled positions (e.g., being anti-ethanol in Iowa!). And I believe he’s the most honest candidate besides Carly. He’s clearly the most intelligent, excepting poor Ben Carson.
But there’s ‘something’ that’s off-putting about the way he presents himself as a person; something about the way he looks and moves and talks that makes it very hard to get the “warm and fuzzies” about him. And that ‘something’ is something that he can’t do a damned thing about.
Maybe if he and Carly teamed up now and started tag-teaming everyone else? Just pipe dreaming….
I didn’t know that, most impressive.
carl,
That problem can be overcome. The majority of Americans are desperate for leadership with solutions.
@Geoffrey – I hope you are correct, however I am somewhat of the mind that the majority of Americans care for little more than entertainment. =(
‘Bet you didn’t know this about Ted Cruz
I didn’t know it either. Take a look.’
Looking too carefully into a politician’s background is risky. Usually the harder you look the worse it seems. It doesn’t seem to work that way with Cruz though. Taking on ethanol in Iowa and graciously apologizing for a mistake? Sheesh. What’s next? We find out he’s not cheating on his wife?
If he doesn’t stop this un-politician-like behavior, he’s going to ruin all my jokes about dishonest politicians.
‘That problem can be overcome. The majority of Americans are desperate for leadership with solutions.’
Sure. It’s a long time before the election. I am not sure if we can even gauge electability accurately this far out.
Cruz and Carly 2016? We could do a lot worse.
I would love to think Cruz could overcome some of this negativity if he won the nomination, but I have to say it is in the back of my mind as I decide where my primary vote goes. He was very good at the debate on Saturday night. I think against Hillary or Bernie he would do well in a debate, but not sure how that would resonate with the public.
I think the best we he could win is to make the Democrat look so terrible that Democrats are not enthusiastic voters and stay home. He could also choose a VP that might balance out his short-comings in the ‘likeable’ arena.
The media demonization can have a big effect. Remember Republican Senator George Allen and the media coverage of macaca? The Washington Post printed over a hundred stories about macaca and Allen lost the senate race to Webb because of the continued demonization by the media.
Cruz just shot himself in the foot… big time..
he said, crazy to draft women..
ie. being patriarchal will get you slammed by both sides
the large feminist base wants equality, even if its to go to war… the men are tired of being equal with only the stuff that favors women, and not about real equality..
so if they can serve everywhere, then they should be drafted…
selective patriarchy is a farce in that all its doing is saying, lets favor women, by other means….
kind of like how the SBA prevents business by one unprotected class by giving so much to the others no one wants to do business… then the no such thing as reverse applies..
yeah right..
anyway… bad move…
Cruz has been demonized by the MSM for several years now, and it’s sunk in.
yeah, and trump has NEVER got good press in over 35 years…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aimgwzV-77U
I did my own vetting when I decided to support Cruz, so I knew about his tenure at the FTC. I have no doubts about him. If you have the opportunity to attended one of his campaign events you will find that he is far from nasty or sinister.
Artfldgr,
Millions of mothers and fathers will applaud Cruz for his stance on requiring young women to register with the Selective Service
The Republican nominee, regardless of who he is, will be smeared by the MSM. The MSM is already getting their “Rubio is gay and/or a cokehead,” “Bush is a cokehead and/or drunk,” “Christie is fat and/or a bridge,” “Trump is Hitler and/or insane,” and “Cruz is a Jesus Freak” stories ready. It’s showing up now in bottomfeeder areas of the internet and will be raised up to national level reportage later, after the primary. What makes libs worried? People who are smarter than they are. In other words, Cruz. They can write off/dismiss all the rest of these guys (though not Carly Fiorina who has been written off/dismissed by the voters). Rubio and Bush are not aggressive enough on their own behalves and Christie and Trump can be dismissed as clowns. It will be much more difficult to do that to Cruz. Even my liberal law partner knows he’s outrageously smart.
I saw the SNL sketch regarding Cruz. Weak sauce.
I think that after Cruz has shown himself to be tough and principled on issues, he will begin to show his more human likeable side. He is very smart. In fact, that’s probably why so many in congress can’t stand him.
DNW, thanks for that link. I had probably seen excerpts before, but seeing him get through an hour speech was really something. It seems he really has the ability to prioritize issues. I also think he will be willing to listen to other viewpoints if they make sense.
The “electability issue” is a repeat of the same thinking that brought us McCain and Romney. In Cruz’s book he says that his campaign tactics are modeled after Obama’s big data driven, turn out your base model. It obviously worked for Obama. IIRC, Romney got more of the independents than Obama, which totally flummoxed the consultants like Karl Rove.
See these articles about TeamCruz’s campaign approach:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430298/ted-cruz-strategy-conservative-base-turnout
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425362/ted-cruz-nomination-strategy
The results in Iowa show that Cruz has a good implementation of his chosen campaign model. I have read that he has built a national organization and has the money to fight it out all the way to the convention.
It will be interesting to see whether he runs ahead of the polls tomorrow night like he did in Iowa. He will almost certainly not win but that will not faze him (or me).
I saw something the other day that in essence said that Cruz has never been liked by anyone in his entire life. Apparently since kindergarten, his Mother, Senators, everyone hates the guy. Maybe his wife doesn’t know about this. I was so glad I read that because darn if I wasn’t getting fooled by reading some of his positions on issues, and then it was especially tricky listening to him directly on YouTube where he sounds reasonable.
But then I probably wouldn’t like ANY of the politicians running the country if I knew them personally.
Otiose:
Yes, he is one slick fellow, that Cruz, trying to make us think that there some people who have actually liked him or even voted for him in his life. Despicable!
http://polymatharchives.blogspot.in/2015/01/the-inappropriately-excluded.html
The average bloke in Harvard has an IQ of 125-140.
If Alan Dershowitz is right, Ted Cruz has an IQ > 175.
IQ gaps of more than 30 points create social chasms.
( The President’s IQ is probably >115; yet < 125 … which would explain why Larry Summers couldn't connect — nor can George Soros. Barry can't stand either one. )
The reason is the same for all: the intellect gap is too great.
The Big Brain is out-grouped — as the-many ALL resent// fear// loathe the isolated guy.
I don't know what my IQ was, but it was high enough to cause me to be out-grouped from First Grade, and ever after.
No amount of kindness or generosity bridges the gap.
Beyond a certain point, one becomes unintelligible.
No-one of above average intelligence wants to discover that they are too slow to even follow the conversation.
On other forums — I'm ridiculed ALL the time.
The resentment is because of the knowledge gap.
It's epic, of course.
It's also true that I've caused many to fold up their tents and creep away – – out of shame.
They loathe, hate and fear me. And I never said an unkind word.
It — the loathing — is ALL due to self shame. Error. Great technical errors — for those who've propounded themselves world class experts.
THIS is the source of the Ted Cruz hatred.
It's all touchy feely.
Half of humanity makes its big decisions based upon touchy feely… especially tyrants.
‘I saw something the other day that in essence said that Cruz has never been liked by anyone in his entire life.’
They probably just interviewed his mother and his wife and extrapolated the rest. 🙂
How electable was Reagan nine months before the election?
All kidding aside, Cruz is probably in the long run (meaning on election day but not before) the most electable of the Republican candidates, considering his ground game, his charisma one on one, his enthusiasm, especially if he gets the chance to take his message directly to the people (which the debates will let him), and the fact that his opponent will be a raving socialist or the least charismatic and most dishonest politician ever to grace the planet. If all this happens and he still isn’t elected, the US is surely past the point of no return.
But he’s no savior. No single person is. We will not be voting ourselves out of this mess. Cruz, Trump, Rubio, Sanders…they are all effects not causes. But they are effects of different causes. The reason I support Cruz is not because of what he will do if he’s elected but because of what that electing him says about the rest of us and about America. An America that would elect him is not yet ready to fall down and say uncle (Islam) and might portend a change in direction sometime in the future.
So Cruz on America.
The criticisms aimed at Cruz by the Trumpian horde, the gope wacko birds, and of course the msm/progressive soviets, are so outrageous Cruz may end up with sympathy votes. Grannies for Ted!
The Dems are toast this election cycle.
Hillary is collapsing.
Bernie draws Biden into the contest.
Bloomberg goes Indie.
That makes Cruz electable.
In politics, follow the money.
One trails leads to Robert Mercer, a hedge fund billionaire who has contributed $11 million to a Super PAC supporting Ted Cruz. What is Mercer buying for his investment? He is a contributor and supporter of Club for Growth. The Club espouses positions that most conservatives would support, especially in the economic arena. It is unclear where the Club stands on illegal immigration. Cruz’s tenure at the FTC, which I have noted before, was admirable.
Another trail leads to the evangelical movement. It is more a source of electoral support than Super PAC money. Some of the stuff going on with Cruz and the Dominionists is downright creepy.
Ted’s Cruz’s claim to be the outsider does not ring true. Remember the 2014 Mississippi primary? That’s where Tea Party favorite Chris McDaniel won the GOP primary against Thad Cochran but didn’t get enough votes to avoid a runoff. McDaniel was hit with a barrage of ads accusing him of being a racist and encouraging Democrats to vote in the GOP runoff to defeat him. McDaniel lost and and GOPe favorite Cochran won. At the time:
It turns out that those ads were paid for by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and Ted Cruz was the Committee’s Vice Chairman for Grassroots Outreach. Say one thing in public but do the dirty work behind the scenes. That’s Ted Cruz.
PatD:
I’m not buying what Sir Donald or you are selling.
same game they run on any republican leading…
PatD:
You know one of the things I like about you?
You make it so I don’t have to go to conservative treehouse to know what they’re saying there 🙂 .
I sat next to a climate scientist at a family wedding this last Saturday. He is of course very liberal and highly educated with 4 degrees including a PhD. When the subject of politics came up it was interesting because he is obviously not enamored with the Democrat choices and seems willing to consider a Republican. After the usual put downs of the candidates from a liberal perspective he zeroed in on Ted Cruz as “the most qualified.” He knew his background fully, and echoed Dershowitz’ statement that he is “off the charts brilliant.” His problem with supporting Cruz wasn’t so much his political ideology but rather what he considers his pandering to the religious right. He was more than willing to overlook or possibly even consider his economic conservatism as legitimate – which told me that even a die hard liberal knows socialism doesn’t work. He summed it up by saying that Cruz is too smart to be a Republican!
@neo-neocon:
Oh thanks. I did provide the link to Conservative Tree House. But, are the facts in dispute?
PatD:
My point is that you tend to echo whatever the conspiracy theory du jour is there.
Back in the day, Conservative TreeHouse did a huge amount of research on the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case. They shed light where no one else could. I learned the significance of Trayvon’s purchases at the store before the shooting (ingredients for a codeine based street drug). I learned how his burglary record at his HS had been suppressed. I learned about his “fight club” videos.
They repeated that success with the Michael Brown shooting in St. Louis.
Long before Trump, Conservative Treehouse was on my list as a blogger willing and able to do the deep digging. So, they had a track record with me. When they crawl through the FEC filings to find out who paid for the attack ads on McDaniel, and show the filings, I’m going to give them credibility.
They are pro-Trump because they believed they had worked out the GOPe strategy to give us Jeb Bush as the GOP candidate. It isn’t working out so well because the GOP base is so disenchanted with the GOPe, that anti-establishment candidates. i.e. Cruz and Trump, are wrecking the plan. Trump is a crap-shoot. Cruz is the Heisenberg candidate – establishment or anti-establishment? It depends on when you observe him.
@neo-neocon:
Two simple questions:
Did the NRSC pay for the ads against McDaniel? I’ll need FEC documentation.
Was Ted Cruz the NRSC Vice Chairman for Grassroots Outreach at the time?
If you can document that the answer to either question is “No”, then you will have demonstrated that Conservative Treehouse are a bunch of conspiracy theorists and I’m a sucker for believing them.
This where I lose hope for the general population. They can be incredibly lazy and stupid. A couple of years ago at a dinner party I asked someone why he’d vote for a Democrat. He answered, “Because they’re for the middle class.” He worked as a computer scientist.
Check out this at WSJ:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/clintons-u-n-candidate-1454977210
These are the kinds of things that Cruz can bring up, and that other candidates will ignore. Since Clinton is now losing support among millenial women, some of them may be reachable. All we need is a commie running the UN because she has a vagina.
You know what’s so awesome about Trump? People are debating on twitter whether he really called Cruz a p..sy because he was doing his trick of “she said it, not me”. Classy guy, very presidential.
neo-neocon Says:
PatD:
You know one of the things I like about you?
You make it so I don’t have to go to conservative treehouse to know what they’re saying there 🙂 .
I have found that a lot of the most rabid, obnoxious and dishonest Trumpers that infect both Breitbart and PJ Media come from the conservativetreehouse, which is why I refer to it as conservativenuthouse, or conservative outhouse.
I am used to commenting at Breitbart, and my ratio of upvotes to comments is about 3:1 on 4,000 comments, which used to be in the higher range. Even in retirement, this is a considerable investment of my time. I also do a lot of reading and research to support what I say in my comments.
Now come these loons posting many dozens of abusive, insulting and dishonest comments there every day, inundating every article, and many of them come from the treehouse. They often have 10,000-40,000+ comments with a ratio of 10:1 to hundreds to one, indicating these people cannot have a life, and those on that site more resemble an angry mob than anything.
These people are the most politically ignorant and naive as I have ever encountered on the internet. Their comments are devoid of reason, logic or considered arguments, filled with invective. They’ve fallen for Trump’s celebrity and demagoguery hook line and sinker.
PatD:
1) I never heard of conservativetreehouse, nor any of their contributors, until recently, and I think I’m very well read, following lots of conservative blogs many years.
Funny, isn’t it, that I knew all about Trayvon’s “purple drank” concoction, the cover-up of his high school crimes, his love of the MMA and his thug life. I also closely followed the Ferguson case, and the smallest details about the entire incident and the media complicity in the “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” fraud were readily available from all the normal conservative sites like Breitbart, PJ Media, Legal Insurrection and many, many others.
I don’t believe for an instant that this treehouse broke any of the relevant stories about these farces through original research, or I would have run across links to them everywhere.
I think treehouse is another whacked out conspiracy site like Alex Jones’ infowars.com, only they were much more successful at tapping into the legitimate anger felt by middle America, that 40% of the population that self-identifies as conservative but couldn’t be bothered with politics before. After 9/11, the 2008 collapse, Obama’s radical actions and the GOP’s betrayals, they’re finally beginning to associate politics with why their own own lives are so effed up and they are pissed.
That’s a good thing, if it were to be channeled into constructive action by people who have good ideas on how we can begin to fight back, but it’s being misused by sites like treehouse to fuel fires that will be difficult to contain.
2) You and others talk about Trump’s ability to self-finance as a good thing in and of itself, but all that means is that in the future, only the 1% will be able to run for high office.
However, it’s also possible that some less that wealthy people can attract large donations through the strength of their ideas, and at least some rich people will contribute based on sharing those beliefs, without expecting to buy special rights and privileges. If that’s not possible, then we might as well give up as a species.
These people are the most politically ignorant and naive as I have ever encountered on the internet. Their comments are devoid of reason, logic or considered arguments, filled with invective. They’ve fallen for Trump’s celebrity and demagoguery hook line and sinker.
What’s the intel profile on conservative tree house?
It would be interesting if Breitbart would release where their in links came from, since comments can be tracked back to their source link.
There’s also a significant amount of white Democrats who have begun jumping ship. For 10-30 years, they were bred on Democrat demonization. I don’t think every one of them grew up in the 90s or post 2001, statistically speaking. So they couldn’t have picked it all up from Internet Alinsky seminars that were used to counter Leftist activism and subversion.
A lot of it just has to be linked back to the old Democrat “white boys”. Now that they can’t join the KKK, they need some other mob to join to feel good about themselves, like when they dumped on Bush II and other Republicans like Palin.
A standard intel probe would be to question what other other positions these people have held in the past. If you see a significant percentage as being pro welfare or upping the minimum wage or being pro union, it’s a tell.
Seeing if these people voted for Reagan or Carter would be an easy way to poll the masses, as individual interrogations would be impractical given the numbers.
Y, I’ve long suspected that conservative tree house is a liberal deep cover intel/propaganda operation. If you go way back into their early formation records, which they still have in archives, the pattern is so much like a group of Obamabots getting together to do a left wing version of a James O’Keefe operation. All the chatter is about organizing and absolutely nothing about ideology. They appear to be people who were all connected at lucianne.com, got booted, and decided to form their own blog. Why did Lucianne boot them? The owner has been outed as a pharmacist in Florida. The question that people like PatD should ask themselves is why conservative tree house people try to remain anonymous. What exactly are they hiding?
Ymarsakar Says:
A standard intel probe would be to question what other other positions these people have held in the past. If you see a significant percentage as being pro welfare or upping the minimum wage or being pro union, it’s a tell.
A lot of the most abusive and prolific of them have private disqus profiles, and definitively tracing them back is difficult. Best I could was copy/paste the most distinctive sigs into google, with mixed results. Some went back to Stormfront (neo-nazis), some to infowars (Alex Jones), some to treehouse, many to gamer, cultural and entertainment sites. I couldn’t find anything leading specifically to the left, but good false flag trolls wouldn’t be that stupid.
You’re welcome. I apologize for the way the link panned out. It looks as though I was trying to highlight the Planned Parenthood funding disgrace whereas I had actually intended the clip to start in the beginning, when he is addressing the collusive shenanigans of both parties’ leaderships, and the talk tough and give up immediately strategy of the Republican leadership.
Mr. President, there is a reason the American people are fed up with Washington … the frustration … is volcanic … Over and over again the American people rise up … and say we want change … in 2010 a tidal wave election, in 2014 a tidal wave election … and yet nothing changes in Washington. … I’d like to share … the real story of what is happening in Washington; why is it that our leaders cannot stop bankrupting this country, cannot stop the assault on our Constitutional rights ….