I’m calling the GOP nomination for Ted Cruz
Just as I called it early and correctly for Rick Perry*, I’m calling it for Cruz. Nobody is going to be able to get between him and the teabags who control the GOP nomination. The more I read about the right’s new diabolical craze-bag idol, the more convinced I am that he will be the next Romney.
(* It wasn’t my fault that Perry was a terrible, unprepared and inept candidate. The nomination was his for the taking.)
Anyway, back to Cruz. The GOP has decided to screw rebranding – they are going whole hog crazy. In the pea brains of the GOP’s intelligentsia, Romney lost because he “wasn’t conservative enough.” So Cruz us the rebound. Plus there is all of this….
That comes from a profile of Ted Cruz in GQ which is well worth reading. I heard Toure laughing about Cruz as some kind of a harmless joke earlier, which is what liberals everywhere are doing. I certainly hope they’re right because he is one creepy guy:
It’s hard for Ted Cruz to be humble. Part of the challenge stems from his résumé, which the Texas senator wears like a sandwich board. There’s the Princeton class ring that’s always on his right hand and the crimson gown that, as a graduate of Harvard Law School, he donned when called upon to give a commencement speech earlier this year. (Cruz’s fellow Harvard Law alums Barack Obama and Mitt Romney typically perform their graduation duties in whatever robes they’re given.) Even Cruz’s favorite footwear, a pair of black ostrich-skin cowboy boots, serves as an advertisement for his credentials and connections. “These are my argument boots,” he told me one morning this summer as we rode the subway car beneath the Capitol to a vote on the Senate floor. “When I was Texas solicitor general, I did every argument in these boots. The one court that I was not willing to wear them in was the U.S. Supreme Court, and it was because my former boss and dear friend William Rehnquist was still chief justice. He and I were very close—he was a wonderful man—but he was very much a stickler for attire.”
[…]
[W]hat kept drawing my eye was a giant oil painting above the couch depicting Cruz as he delivered the first of his nine oral arguments before the Supreme Court. “I was 32 years old,” he recalled. “It was abundantly clear we didn’t have a prayer…. And I’ve always enjoyed the fact that as I’m sitting at my desk, I’m looking at a giant painting of me getting my rear end whipped 9-0.”He gazed at the wall. It is an unusual painting: From the artist’s vantage point, we see three other courtroom artists, each also drawing Cruz—so the painting actually features not one but four images of young Cruz before the bench. “It is helpful,” he explained to me, “for keeping one grounded.”
Yah. He’s very grounded. But he does have a plan apparently:
For a party in the midst of some serious soul-searching, Cruz offers a simple, reassuring solution: Forget the blather about demographic tidal waves and pleas for modernization; all Republicans need to do is return to their small-government, anti-tax fundamentals. “I don’t know a conservative who didn’t feel embarrassed voting in 2006 or 2008,” Cruz told me—a remark that’s sure to endear him even more to McCain. “I think the Republican Party lost its way. We didn’t stand for the principles we’re supposed to believe in.”
Should he run for president, in 2016 or beyond, Cruz’s strategy will be to superglue himself to the conservative base and hope it carries him to the GOP nomination. It’s been tried over and over since Reagan—and it has failed every time. Just not enough wacko birds out there. Then again, the men who have tried it—from Pat Robertson in 1988 to Rick Santorum in 2012—possessed nowhere near Cruz’s political acumen, not to mention his life story. Or, to put it the way Cruz himself might: None of them were Ted Cruz.
It’s awfully hard to see how that can work in today’s political environment. Cruz is good, but he’s no Ronald Reagan. In fact, the Republican president he reminds me of the most was Richard Nixon. A man who managed to win the office at the very zenith of American liberalism…
“Pride cometh before the fall”
Cruz cannot really be attacked by “establishment” Republicans without them confirming his accusations. I think he is sneaky enough to pull this off.
This is awesome
Then…
Now you know why they call him Carnival Cruz.
Cruz will be thrown over for a consensus candidate like McCain or Romney who also isn’t conservative enough and Cruz will become the cucleus of a new “stabbed in the back” narrative.
“I don’t know a conservative who didn’t feel embarrassed voting in 2006 or 2008,” Cruz told me
The man is a prophet, I tell you – foreshadowing his own fate.
On the other hand, this makes it even more important we nominate Hillary.
@p “Cruz will be thrown over for a consensus candidate…”
This shows a lack of understanding of how the process works. The GOP candidate has ALWAYS been decided in a back room deal. There has NEVER been (in our lifetime) the case where the GOP candidate that finally emerged wasn’t the already “chosen one”.
The only possible exceptions were 1964 and 1976.
The entire process always was, and probably always will be, a total farce.
Which GOP candidate did FOX News not attack in the last round?… and who had daggers in hand when others were weeded out?
Old-time filibusters required the Senators to speak; new filibusters didn’t, so a cloture vote was necessary. What Senator Cruz has done is to set the limit of the debate at the limit of his endurance, which means that no cloture vote is necessary. In this way, he has gotten his fellow Republican Senators off the hook: they don’t have to vote for cloture, but just wait until he cannot continue. They can all vote against the continuing resolution, but it still passes, with Obaminablecare in it.
Obaminablecare …. tee hee… Suck it!
Mr Elite wrote:
I’ll admit that it certainly looks that way, judging by whom we have nominated, but the very simple fact is that our nominees, just like the Democrats’ nominees, had to do something really radical like win primary elections. It could be argued that as a more conservative party, our primary voters are less likely to look at candidates outside of the ones originally thought to be the eventual nominee, but, in the end, it is how those voters vote.
As for Mr 330’s 2011 prediction, I supported Governor Perry, because he had a great record as governor of Texas. Trouble is, being a good governor doesn’t automatically mean you will be a good candidate, and Mr Perry proved that right from the start.
And while the Republicans almost always nominate the man we thought would win from the start, the Democrats haven’t really nominated their (non-incumbent) presumptive frontrunners recently other than in 1984 and 2000 . . . and y’all lost both of those elections.
“The GOP candidate has ALWAYS been decided in a back room deal.”
I always laugh my ass off at how eager Republicans like Dana are to turn on a dime once the DC elites tell them who the nominee is going to be. Once day Romney or Dole is horrible, then the word comes down and …Presto!
I laugh in spite of myself at times. It is an organizational strength to have such ovine followers.
Gotta say this… Ted Cruz knows the intellectual limitations of his base. Pretend filibuster? Priceless.
I know, right? You couldn’t write this stuff.
Dana doesn’t have these details right, actually. What Carnival Cruz is doing is theater, not a filibuster. There is a vote scheduled for this afternoon and there isn’t anything procedurally — especially since many of his colleagues wish this would go away — to stop the upcoming vote. He’s been able to successfully convince the people who don’t pay attention to how the Senate works (Dana) that this is somehow a filibuster. Cruz basically negotiated using some down time waiting for this vote to put on his show.
CSPAN provides their viewers a service:
Mr 330 wrote:
Neither Mr Dole nor Mr Romney was my preferred candidate, but what choice did I have come general election time? Where I’ve lived (Virginia in 1996 and Pennsylvania in 2012), our nominee was already settled before the primary election in my state.
I have voted third party on occasion. In 2004, I voted for Pat Toomey in the senatorial primary, and, because it was obvious that Senator Specter was going to win the general election, I voted third party in the general.
My good friend Jason wrote:
Well, it certainly does suck, that’s for sure!
But I’d guess that even you would agree with me that it was never intended to actually work; it was simply intended to be something that could actually be passed, to establish the idea that the federal government would be ultimately responsible for guaranteeing everyone had health care coverage. Then, when it falls apart — which it will — the Democrats will say, “See, we tried it using the ‘conservative’ approach, using the existing private insurance system, and it just didn’t work, so single-payer is all that’s left.” The idea that we would return to a system in which your health care wasn’t guaranteed would be off the table.
Dana: Nice paranoia there. Of course single-payer would work better, but let’s face it, if Obamacare were doomed to fail, Republicans wouldn’t be so panicky about it. Their fear isn’t that it will fail. It’s that it will succeed.
…so single-payer….
I wish the Socialist Kenyan usurper was the cagey black panther you give him credit for being, but if that’s the plan, I’m totally down with it.
Dana: Why would you want a system in which your health care wasn’t guaranteed?
If this codger isn’t soaking up his fill of SS and medicare, I’d be shocked.
Mr Geezer asked:
Because if you cannot or will not pay for something, you should not get it. All this does is tax people who do work to give something else to those who will not.
Mr 330 wrote:
Well, stand by to be shocked, because I’m not old enough! 🙂 I’m only 60.
Howsomeever, the government has taxed me from when I started working, through this very day, with the promise that I would receive Social Security and Medicare benefits when I retired, and if I had a billion dollars of wealth — Alas! I don’t. — I would still claim every last penny of the Social Security and Medicare benefits I was owed.
“Because if you cannot or will not pay for something, you should not get it.”
I think this is where conservatives differ with others. The rest of us can imagine being in situations in which we could not pay for needed medical care.
“All this does is tax people who do work to give something else to those who will not.”
That’s an ignorant statement, unworthy of your actual level of intelligence.
Since he doesn’t seem to understand how insurance works, you are probably overestimating his actual level of intelligence.
Let me add that federal law already mandates health care for anyone who shows up at an emergency room needing it. We already do what you fear. This law, at least in theory, will try to get these people care in a less expensive manner.
Mr Geezer wrote:
Can you tell me where it’s wrong?
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provides subsidies — meaning: my tax dollars — to people to buy private insurance if they fall below a specified income level. How is that not taking money from those of us who work hard and produce more to give to those who are not as productive or do not work at all?
This is the fundamental problem with the notion that people somehow have “rights” to things that they do not earn themselves; it means that they have, in effect, a right to stick their hands into other people’s wallets to pay for the things for which they cannot pay themselves, that they have a right to require me to work more and more hours not for myself, but for them. As my friends on the left advocate more and more generosity out of the public till, for those they see as less fortunate, they seem to forget that as they give more to some, they must take more from others.
I doubt that this ever would have been a problem if we had been able to somehow devise a system in which only those who really cannot work, who are really handicapped in some fashion, were the only ones who were receiving welfare. Unfortunately, we have not been smart enough or wise enough to manage to write the regulations like that, or give social workers the discretion to insure that, and the entire system has been tipped so hard in favor of the malingerers that support for it from the producers has dropped. We have gone from a system in which we were willing to tolerate the possibility of some cheating, to insure that no actually needy person wouldn’t be covered, to one in which a lot of people, myself definitely included, would rather see some of the genuinely needy excluded to get the willful malingerers and cheats off the public dole.
Mr Geezer wrote:
The “in theory” part was certainly one of the methods by which the PP&ACA was sold, but I have my doubts that this will be the case. That we require emergency rooms to treat anyone who shows up with an emergency is true, but you’ll note that there are some hospitals closing down their emergency rooms, in part due to that requirement.
Dana, you are already paying for people without insurance. That’s one of the reasons health insurance is so expensive – people with insurance pay more to cover those without. You did know this… right?
Yes, Pandora, I did know that, but believe that I would pay more with the PP&ACA.
I have absolutely no problem at all with taking every last farthing from anyone who gets medical treatment for which he cannot pay, and garnishing his future earnings until his debts are settled.
I would make the counter-argument that insurance exists so that people who suffer catastrophic injury will not be bankrupted by medical expenses.
My wife suffered a subdural hemorrhage several years ago. Had it happened 10 years before it did, she would have died; the location would have made an operation nearly impossible (they would have had to cut through her brain stem to reach it). Thanks to a method developed in that socialized-medicine hellhole, France, they were able to plug it with coils. Between the operation, the six months in neuro ICU and the three months in rehab to learn how to walk again, the bills exceeded $1 million.
We had insurance to cover much of it, but if I lose my job we’re screwed, because she’s now uninsurable.
I said the comment was unworthy of your intelligence because you know quite well that a large number of the uninsured DO work and are working, yet still can’t cover this.
You also realize that dozens of industrialized countries manage to provide health care for all their citizens, but choose to ignore it.
Yours is a dog-eat-dog mentality shared, alas, by most conservatives. As cooperation rather than competition is what makes civilization possible, we can only hope that your philosophy dies out with your generation.
“I have absolutely no problem at all with taking every last farthing from anyone who gets medical treatment for which he cannot pay, and garnishing his future earnings until his debts are settled.”
In that case, I hope your wife has the same opportunity as mine to plumb the limits of having someone else pay for her health care.
Of course, one option here would be for Mr. Dana to STFU until he actually has something to complain about. At this point, he “believes” he’ll pay more. Call the wahmbulance.
Not Fronting A Fake Filibuster: Nation’s Top Newspapers Bury Ted Cruz
Most of the nation’s major papers and even a bunch of the Texas ones didn’t even lead with this bit of theater.
Mr Geezer wrote:
Ahhh, but you see, we are responsible, and do pay for, and have health insurance. People absolutely should carry health insurance; it is the responsible thing to do. But that does not mean that I should be responsible for the irresponsible choices of others.
*sigh* You really are clueless and have obviously lived a charmed life.
My cousin, with insurance, died last spring at the age of 48. Six weeks before he died he was in court – again – fighting with his insurance company. Yes, they eventually paid up. Bet that was the way he wanted to spend his last days.
My girlfriend died of cancer several years ago. She had insurance, yet every time she used it she had to spend hours after every appointment getting them to pay up. Not to mention all the times they tried to drop her for BS reasons.
My neighbor lost their job, and when their COBRA ran out they became uninsurable. Now their health care plan is… don’t get sick until they qualify for Medicare.
Conservatives are really a simplistic bunch… until fate knocks on their door.
In Dana’s world we would let people die on the street outside the emergency room. Right?
“you see, we are responsible, and do pay for, and have health insurance.”
So do we — through my employer. But if I lose my job, she will lose her insurance. If your wife suffers a similar injury, you will find yourself in the same situation. So, since you apparently won’t understand this until it hits home, I wish upon you the same that fate gave me. Hope she survives.
“that does not mean that I should be responsible for the irresponsible choices of others.”
That’s why there’s a mandate. But of course you know that.
My wife’s inability to purchase health insurance is not due to an irresponsible choice she made; aneurysms are congenital, built in at birth. It’s due to an irresponsible capitalist system.
But that does not mean that I should be responsible for the irresponsible choices of others.
Which, if you think about it, is exactly what insurance does for better or worse.
Dana just doesn’t want to mix *his* insurance with *their* insurance.
@Cassandra A consensus seems to be forming around the theory that the the “fauxlibuster” (and Cruz’ run for the GOP nomination) is more about locking in millions of dollars in wingnut welfare than it is about any actual political agenda.
That makes perfect sense and conforms to the precepts of Occam’s razor. Wingnuts are nothing if not gullible suckers.
Pandora asked:
Yes.
Cassandra wrote:
No, not at all. If people pay for their own insurance, that’s absolutely fine with me, and I absolutely encourage it. I just don’t believe that we should have to order people to pay insurance, or that I should have to pay for other people’s insurance.
Hope you and your family always – and I mean always – carry your insurance card and ID on your person.
And I don’t believe you mean that, Dana.
I’ll put it bluntly for my friends on the left: the choice is whether we tax or somehow otherwise charge people who work harder and produce more to pay for the health care of those who are less productive or don’t work at all, to see to it that everyone is covered, or we are willing to let people who cannot or will not pay for themselves go without health care.
I prefer the latter.
Pandora wrote:
If I did not mean it, I would not have said it.
the choice is whether we tax or somehow otherwise charge people who work harder and produce more to pay for the health care of those who are less productive or don’t work at all, to see to it that everyone is covered, or we are willing to let people who cannot or will not pay for themselves go without health care.
This is bullshit, really. The people who will be paying a subsidized rate for insurance under this program are people who ARE working. They are working for the Walmarts and the other GOP beloved job creators who are not providing insurance for the people who are working hard to sell you their junk. If what you want is to have everyone pay for their own insurance with no subsidies, then you need to be in favor of mandating that these firms do what your employer does for you — pay for a big chunk of your insurance premium.
Because even though your employer pays a big part of your insurance premium, that is *completely* subsidized by taxpayers. Even by the taxpayers whose insurance you don’t want to help subsidize.
@Dana “the Democrats haven’t really nominated their (non-incumbent) presumptive frontrunners recently other than in 1984 and 2000 . . .”
When Hillary lost in 2008? Do you really think that the early back roomers thought Obama had any real chance?
@Dana “…or we are willing to let people who cannot or will not pay for themselves go without health care.
I prefer the latter.”
And we’re the ONLY first world nation that has people like you. Everywhere else it’s considered a fundamental human right to have healthcare.
You can have your preference, but it’s truly offensive.
The sneaky games some insurance companies have played in the past have been truly offensive.
The whole “pre-existing condition” situation has been truly offensive.
The sheer number of medical bankruptcies we have had have been truly offensive.
…
It goes on and on. No nation should exploit it’s people like that.
Without freedom from want, we really have no freedom.
I am so glad that people with your worldview have been soundly defeated.
Mr Elite, I’d say that Senator Obama winning the nomination in 2008 was highly unexpected by the “back roomers.” Early on, no, I doubt anyone thought he could win in the general election, but the economy was still going strong then.