Video: Ted Cruz Phonebanking with Trump/Pence Signs in Background
I can’t even
@Toddkron ok, ok- fine pic.twitter.com/j1WJoqoWww
— Liam Donovan (@LPDonovan) October 6, 2016
No, he doesn’t say vote for Trump. But yes, he is fully aware the signs are behind him and he is being filmed. This is the cuckiest cucking that ever cucked. At a time like this, all you can do is pile on and help make fun of the guy.
It’s annoying that this is Jonathan Chait, but funny is funny:
Donald needs your help so he can cut taxes, appoint conservative judges and [looks at script] investigate Rafael Cruz's role in the Kennedy pic.twitter.com/FVPA7WZRZg
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) October 6, 2016
More:
US senator Ted Cruise suffers tortures of the damned, being put to brutal and inhuman work as the base and wretched slave of Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/w8tsVdIbYW
— DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) October 6, 2016
Also:
"Just between us. I'm voting for Hillary" pic.twitter.com/UfJuzY2eXR
— andy lassner (@andylassner) October 6, 2016
A reminder of why I think this guy deserves some brutal humiliation today:
Although it would be pretty funny to take the audio from that last video and dub it over the phonebanking video.
I thought Trump was going to humiliate Cruz — and he probably still will.
But Cruz is doing it to himself.
Patterico (bcf524) — 10/6/2016 @ 5:50 pmApropos of nothing in particular…
CayleyGraph (353727) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:00 pmCrow eats crow.
“FIDO says it couldn’t be any better than this.” – NASA PAO, STS-1, 1981
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:02 pmpicklehead probably decided praying to the god what anointed him to be president wasn’t gonna do the trick
sore loser harvardtrash ted needs a Trump victory in the worst way ever
after what he did at the convention…
if that pig gets all up in it?
ikes
he chose poorly is all i can say
happyfeet (28a91b) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:03 pmIt’s politics, man.
This is the real world.
We private citizens can kick and scream at our television set everytime a politician lets us down, but politicians have to work with such “trespassing” politicians. If Trump becomes President, he’ll have to work with Senator Cruz and vice versa.
Besides, Cruz knows the biggest knock against him is that he doesn’t work well with others. So he has the benefit of rehabbing that image a little bit with some electioneering for Trump. Also, if Cruz ever should become the presidential nominee in the future, he’s going to absolutely need people within the GOP with whom he disagrees to put aside past grievances and get out and campaign for him. He realizes that.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:09 pmwell he’s phoning it in, the huntress did similar work for mcdonnell, because gillespie didn’t let her play in their reindeer games,
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:09 pmPer WaPo: “DPRK News is run by two American guys: Patrick, a lawyer, and Derrick, a data analyst. They also run the ‘Popehat’ account, which tweets from the perspective of, well, the pope’s hat.”
Andrew (1e7be5) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:10 pmCorrect.
Patterico (bcf524) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:20 pmTrust me, I know about that account. I have followed it for years.
Patterico (bcf524) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:20 pmSuppose you got that call?
Would you realize it was Ted in person and not a tape?
Would you think it was a Ted impersonator?
Having navigated those two questions, what would you say to Ted?
And how many other members of the Senate would not be too arrigant to phone bank or go door to door for another candidate?
If I got that call, I would have hung up so quickly I would not have noticed who was calling. I do that to all calls, from all politicians.
Kishnevi (7bc26d) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:20 pmHe hasn’t called me yet. But then again, his campaign was so screwed up that he probably lost my phone number. His emails, which I haven’t spammed (yet), have been less than inspirational.
Oh yeah, we’ve got our “official number” on “leave a message.” I’ll check the messages when I’ve got a moment …
I will always love the sweaty evangelist persona that he gave to
BobStewartatHome (d2c7a4) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:23 pmTrump er… Drudge.In case some of you need reminding, Trump and Pence are on the Republican national ticket. As much as I dislike Trump, I do not think it would be reasonable for Cruz to request those signs be removed. At no time does Cruz say on the phone anything about supporting Trump. For all I know, he could be trying to make sure that other Republics down the ticket don’t take a hit. Redstate also posted this. I am disappointed that both of these websites posted this. You predicted Trump would pee on him. If the person who posted this video is a Trump surrogate, this is exactly what is happening. I commend you for your spot-on prediction, but I cannot commend you for enabling it by piling on Cruz in this way.
Tony (ff2fe4) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:28 pmthank you for the reminder
happyfeet (28a91b) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:31 pmdon’t worry in a year, red queen will make any web based criticism superfluous, it’s already banned in many govt offices,
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:34 pmI’ve was for Mitt back in 2015 when he stopped the JEB! bandwagon, and I’ve not wavered evn though he’s been reluctant to run. He could STILL run a write in campaign and beat Trump in several states. ANd it’s not clear what would happen if he ran such a campaign in CA, OR, WA, NM, MA, NY, MN and several other states that are blue to deep blue. Trump probably can’t make it to 270, but Romney could probably block Hillary from 270 as well. Then it would be up to Congress.
It’s not for CERTAIN that we have Civil-War-bait in the WHite House.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:34 pmThe point being that MITT has never ever suggested that maybe Trump was OK.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:35 pmEarlier in the year, I had an idea for a modern remake of a movie.
The Democrats would play the role of the Scribes and Pharisees.
Donald Trump would play the role of Barabbas.
Ted Cruz would play the role of John the Baptist.
But now, I need a new choice for John the Baptist.
John Hitchcock (4558ba) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:44 pm=ring, ring=
I am Ted
Ted I said;
I do not like,
Orange hair on heads.
I call to say,
And stay in play;
So I may run again,
Someday.
That Trump and Pence,
Are both a mensch;
So cast your vote,
I will not gloat.
It is uncool,
To play the fool;
And serve you damn,
Orange hair on ham.
=click=
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:45 pmHow is Cruz working a phone bank for Joe Barton in Dallas suggesting Trump is OK? He also ran a fundraiser for Senate candidates today with Cornryn. Ayotte, I’m sure Blount, Burr and Toomey appreciate the help. None of them are particularly avid Trump supporters.
Rick Ballard (1aa129) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:47 pmMeh. Just … meh.
I apologize to everybody I was intemperate to during the primaries. Any one of youse guys is worth more than all these politicians put together.
nk (dbc370) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:48 pm@19- Are you suggesting Tedtoo is just barton around?
“Pardon me.” – Richard Nixon belching after a Coca-Cola, 1974
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:51 pmWatch what Rubio does to Fredo Trump in his rowboat on a pond at Mar-a-Lago on November 8. The Murphy setup is a real classic.
Rick Ballard (1aa129) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:59 pm“Hello, Lobby Desk, Trump Tower. Good afternoon, sir… Yes, I’ll bring the limo around to get you to the heliport and your jet right away, Mr. Trump. Can I help with the luggage?”
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:08 pmthe two minute hate is like that rick, even winston didn’t realize why he was doing it,
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:15 pmI’m old enough to remember when thought of burr as a low down snake, for having slimed cruz as some unpatriotic associate of snowden,
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:19 pmBut Rick Ballard is right. Cruz is calling on behalf of Barton, not Trump. It’s just the optics that suck.
nk (dbc370) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:20 pmisn’t wonderful you are chaitred’s side,
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:23 pmyou’re ok with this, you ride with red queen,
http://www.weaselzippers.us/299777-doj-criminal-background-checks-citizenship-requirements-barriers-to-police-force-diversity/
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:26 pmAnd there I was exercising restraint by not writing “It’s just the optics, *and Trump*, that suck. Oh, well. Bread upon the waters.
I’m on the side of everybody who doesn’t want Ace Rothstein and Ginger McKenna in the White House.
nk (dbc370) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:27 pmI did say three continents,
http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/02/exposed-the-corrupt-clinton-foundation-youve-never-heard-of/
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:33 pmrazorback fits rothstein to a tee, he earns money for doing nearly no work, and ginger mckenna could ery well run spectre’s operations,
http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/02/exposed-the-corrupt-clinton-foundation-youve-never-heard-of/
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:35 pmit would be a fairer referee,
http://www.meforum.org/6316/time-to-break-up-the-quartet
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:38 pmNevertrumpers in mourning
For San Raphael
Everyone that Trump fought
Is just about all gone
When the moon is high
In November’s sky
They’ll be cuckin’ at
Joe Scarborough’s Faire
Nevertrumpers in mourning
Nevertrumpers y’all take care
He broke Rick Perry in Houston
Broke Doc Ben in Santa Fe
He beat Cruz and ol’Carly
The Indiana way
He’ll be lookin’ at 8
If he don’t Watergate
And I hope his judges are fine
Nevertrumpers in mourning
Nevertrumpers y’all take care
Nevertrumpers in mourning
For San Rafael
Everyone that Trump fought
Is just about all gone
Well he’s not their guy
So they let it fly
She’s a b*tch
but the one they need
Nevertrumpers in mourning
Nevertrumpers y’all take care
Pinandpuller (e2e35f) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:40 pmAt the risk of being reminded that I can self-deport,
what Tony said
Do you not want him to work a phone bank for repub candidates?
Did you want him to ask people to take down the posters in deference to him?
(I think that would be pretty petty).
Cruz has never endorsed Trump, he has said he will vote for him because it is important to keep Clinton out of the white house.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:43 pmI think that is not only a reasonable stand, it is a principled stand as well,
he hasn’t gone all chumy as if Trump did nothing wrong,
but neither is he letting a personal grudge cause him to help elect Clinton.
that cannot be, one must engage in quixotic exercises, like bluntman, who does seem to be damaging red queen in the granite state, because slavery is freedom or something,
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:48 pmPolitics makes strange bedfellows, indeed.
Timbly (011fb1) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:48 pmconsidering chagoury was a big fan, who orchestrated that bronx cheer against cruz,
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/hezbollah-operative-slated-speak-washington-d-c/
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:56 pmI supported Cruz up until he withdrew. What he is now doing is extremely admirable. He is refusing to be the man whose actions doomed the U.S. Supreme Court to a generational leftist takeover, with concomitant transformation of our constitutional system beyond all repair. He is refusing to be the man whose actions ensured porous American borders for decades to come. He is refusing to let painful personal issues undermine advancement of his policy positions. Cruz is a hero.
Andrew (1e7be5) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:56 pmActually, I appreciated the reminder that the only thing politicians stand for is re-election.
nk (dbc370) — 10/6/2016 @ 7:56 pmI was as disappointed as anyone when Cruz endorsed Trump but this doesn’t strike me as a problem. Cruz is phone-banking in Tarrant County for a conservative Texas Republican in a down-ballot race. That’s exactly what he said he would do at the GOP Convdntion and what he encouraged us all to do.
It would be petty if he insisted the Trump signs be removed or that he not be photographed. To me, this is one of those grin-and-bear-it moments all politicians endure … and nothing more.
DRJ (15874d) — 10/6/2016 @ 8:14 pmDRJ, the sad part is how often we see folks descend into all the nasty and fundamentally dishonest name calling (if I have to read “harvardtrash” and “up in that pig” one more time from someone who is in fact capable of writing clearly….).
The Left thinks it is okay to make up the most bizarre stuff, and repeat it endlessly. It becomes the meme that everyone knows. In every election, the Republican candidate is “stupid” and “intolerant” and “crazy.” Yet the Left praises the last Republican and insists the “new” Republican is the bad one.
And we hold still for it. We do the Left’s work.
For example, Trump is an awful candidate. But he is not a racist. He does cozy up to bad people. So the Left gets to keep misrepresenting things, lying and so forth. The MSM helps. So does most of social media. I can come up with awful things that HRC has said in the past, and even in the present. But the current climate responds with “because shut up” and insists that Trump is evil incarnate, instead of a unqualified disaster as a candidate. That last, as I said yesterday, is based on what Trump CHOOSES to do in this campaign, repeatedly Sheesh.
And even here, I see good people descend to the same level of silliness. I have done it too. But then I asked myself a simple question: if I don’t like it when the Left does it to a candidate I think well of (for example, I read one Leftie praising Romney for not cozying up to racists…but that SAME PERSON called Romney a racist in 2012), it isn’t right when I do it. Period.
Sort of like folks here calling Romney names. Like “perve.” While supporting Trump.
I think our whole society has gone nuts with bumpersticker thinking. Meme warfare. I have no solution. But it makes me sad.
What the heck do I know? Right or Left, it isn’t my country anymore, based on what I see folks saying and doing.
Simon Jester (485863) — 10/6/2016 @ 8:29 pmYou’re right, DRJ. But once bitten, twice shy.
nk (dbc370) — 10/6/2016 @ 8:31 pmthe current climate is worthy of a police state, well perhaps a little less subtle but when univision who’s head actually paid 250 million as fines for tax evasions, when the times has lost 75% of their value, in their slaving apologia to transnationalism,
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 8:33 pmI don’t know. I’m able to make phone calls from the privacy of my home, for example. But then, nobody would know I’m doing it.
I think it’s pretty clear he wants people to know he’s doing this. Right?
Patterico (bcf524) — 10/6/2016 @ 8:34 pmlets just elect daryl and his other brother daryl from san antonio, that’ll learn um
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 8:35 pmOne of your students, Simon?
mg (31009b) — 10/6/2016 @ 8:38 pmhttp://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/10/university-wisconsin-madison-students-sell-hoodies-online-racist-anti-police-messages/
Do you, or do you not, think that Cruz intended to get himself on camera this way?
It’s hard for me to believe he didn’t.
It just strikes me as more rolling on his back to have his belly rubbed.
But I’m not going to get all bent out of shape over it or get mad at people who think it’s no big deal.
I’m just going to shake my head and laugh sadly.
Patterico (bcf524) — 10/6/2016 @ 8:39 pmthe journolist, the somelives matter movement, the rhodes road show, perpetrated by j street and plowshares, the whole pennstate skydragon show, compared to that a cartoon frog and a mere passel of samizdat publications, and that doesn’t even include the other calypso louis worthy list of proscriptions from the adl, like numbers in certain combinations,
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 8:41 pmbut say national review, which early on abandoned steyn, thinks trump is the problem, the weekly standard which has spent four years, chronicling red queen’s cavalcade of crime, can’t draw the right conclusion,
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 8:44 pmThe other thing is that a lot of people, principally Trump supporters, do view it as Cruz now being 100% with Trump.
But it doesn’t matter. I don’t think the support of someone whose father was involved in JFK’s assassination is worth all that much.
nk (dbc370) — 10/6/2016 @ 8:50 pm“This is the cuckiest cucking that ever cucked”
Yeah, but that is a very ugly thing to say about anyone.
Pistols at 20 paces insult
I’ve seen trolls level that at you and Goldstein, but just because it has become a common insult used by chronically impolite trolls doesn’t mean it is an ok thing to repeat.
Maybe SJ will go into a tizzy over this one, but I doubt it
steveg (5508fb) — 10/6/2016 @ 9:44 pmBy the way, Trump can’t lift his leg any higher over Cruz than you just did.
steveg (5508fb) — 10/6/2016 @ 9:46 pmYou owe Cruz an apology.
“Make the bad man call mommy!”-Baron Trump
Pinandpuller (e2e35f) — 10/6/2016 @ 9:59 pmYou know, Steve….you can play the fake macho posturing all you want.
I can’t control what people write. Especially not the fellow who runs this place.
I have always said that name-calling of politicians is a lazy and silly idea. That’s my opinion.
But if you are happy with the state of our political system, fine. I want things to be better.
I fully expect that won’t happen. We love circular firing squads on the Right.
Simon Jester (485863) — 10/6/2016 @ 10:15 pmIs there a caption contest?
How about Trumphausen by Proxy?
Pinandpuller (e2e35f) — 10/6/2016 @ 10:16 pmCruz is lifting his own leg over himself as he comtorts to prostrate himself before Trump. That’s my view of why he is doing this publicly, knowing he is being filmed.
It’ll probably go over well with a lot of people, and if it does, it’s a successful political calculation.
I just think it’s pathetic. In my opinion.
Patterico (bcf524) — 10/6/2016 @ 10:20 pmThere’s a thon line between healthy skepticism and corrosive cynicism, simon, how’s Manuel o’kelly.
narciso (d1f714) — 10/6/2016 @ 10:36 pmIs it “lifting [one’s] leg over [oneself]” for Cruz to raise money for down-ticket Republicans, state and federal?
Is it “lifting [one’s] leg over [oneself]” for Cruz to make public appearances as he campaigns for the GOP?
“lifting [one’s] leg over [oneself]” for Cruz to make public appearances in places, like a county GOP HQ, where there are posters and banners prompting Trump in addition to other GOP candidates?
“lifting [one’s] leg over [oneself]” for Cruz to permit himself to be photographed there?
“lifting [one’s] leg over [oneself]” for Cruz to keep his repeated public promises — promises no one but the other 16 GOP candidates made, promises made in writing not to each other but to the GOP (including the still confidential “data-sharing” agreement), promises also made to the American public while asking for their support for the GOP nomination — that he would “support” the GOP presidential nominee?
What, short of sulking in a cave, could Ted Cruz have done to satisfy you, Patrick? I’m genuinely curious. I see a Republican U.S. Senator photographed while supporting Republican candidates in an office in his home state in a critical election year. You see someone pissing himself in submission to Donald Trump.
I know you watched that Texas Tribune interview with Evan Smith, you linked it here. Why do you think Ted Cruz’ opinions about Trump, or his willingness to toady to him, have changed since then?
If this is the best evidence you can come up with, you certainly haven’t persuaded me to your point of view. I take Cruz, instead, at his word.
(PS: Didn’t intend to comment here again until after the election, but the swamp has been drained of its most noxious elements. Thanks.)
Beldar (fa637a) — 10/6/2016 @ 10:42 pm(As almost always when she comments, I could have just said, “Ditto what DRJ said,” without losing anything at all in translation and with a vast improvement in brevity.)
Beldar (fa637a) — 10/6/2016 @ 10:44 pmOur host wrote above (#47):
Actually, I think a U.S. Senator — any U.S. Senator, but especially the second runner up to the current GOP nominee, after this crazy season — has to assume he’s going to have photos taken of him every time he sets foot outside his front door.
But I have a follow-up question for you:
Do you think perhaps the photographer who lined up this photo, or the editor who cropped it, was laughing as he did so — just like (as you put it, aptly) everyone who’s “piling on”?
Beldar (fa637a) — 10/6/2016 @ 10:56 pm(First runner up. Sorry, I’m not as much in practice with my beauty pageant lingo as the GOP nominee is.)
Beldar (fa637a) — 10/6/2016 @ 10:59 pmBeldar, I’m glad you posted. You class the place up.
Though I agree with you about some of the noxious element being muted.
Simon Jester (485863) — 10/6/2016 @ 11:22 pmCruz has no good options. Painted himself in a corner. Ran as the integrity candidate who didn’t play politics, said what we all know of Trump’s character, and now has to be seen as failing to fight Hillary or going back on his word with Trump.
Beldar’s surely right and Cruz’s efforts are big picture efforts for the GOP. But it still looks terrible, and in our culture that’s politics. Cruz will probably be a little more open about all this in a few months, when Hillary is president and he can say he did what he could in a difficult situation. A book on his thinking would be a good read.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 10/6/2016 @ 11:47 pmI think it’s pretty clear he wants people to know he’s doing this. Right?
More likely he wants the photo op for party activists — and a future campaign spot. Not that it will matter much. He’s done. There’s likely a “Senator Perry” in his future.
Pence can carry the Reagan banner next cycle. Even if you disagree w/him on several POVs– and there’s a lot– he’s much more affable; works and plays well with others, too. Tedtoo, not so much. And unlike Canadian Ted, Hoosier Pence sure as hell knows it’s called a basketball hoop, not a basketball ring.
“Follow the yellow brick road.” – ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ Pence’s favorite film, 1939
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/7/2016 @ 12:26 am@ Simon: Thanks, and back atcha.
@ Dustin: Yes, but Cruz hasn’t been concealing his thinking. To the contrary, even when very pointedly questioned about whether he thinks Trump is “fit,” Cruz refused to say those words, or their equivalent. Why our host thinks this photo counts more than what Cruz has very clearly said on this subject, and what he’s just as clearly refused to say, I’m genuinely at a loss to understand. It seems unfair to me, but worse, it seems superficial — “piling on” indeed.
Beldar (fa637a) — 10/7/2016 @ 12:32 am@16
16.The point being that MITT has never ever suggested that maybe Trump was OK.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 10/6/2016 @ 6:35 pm
Except where he got up on TV in 2012 and took Trump’s endorsement.
Pinandpuller (e9530b) — 10/7/2016 @ 12:46 amTed Cruz puts the welfare of the country first.
When oh when will you?
papertiger (eea782) — 10/7/2016 @ 1:41 amTexan values and harvard trash rule team rino.
mg (31009b) — 10/7/2016 @ 2:40 amThis is what happens when you don’t have your own political organization and are only a wheel, if a squeaky one, in someone else’s machine. Compare and contrast Kasich who has no need to bow to anyone while working to elect the Ohio underticket.
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2016 @ 4:09 amIs anyone, even our esteemed host, surprised to discover that an elected politician is a politician? If this obeisance gets him the Supreme Court nomination, I s’pose it will have been worth it.
I see two considerations here:
Senator Cruz has been a great voice for conservative causes, but what he hasn’t been is a very effective senator. I think he recognizes that himself, and has decided that he needs to be more of a team player if he wants the rest of the team to play for him. Being thoroughly disliked by his Senate colleagues sure didn’t help his presidential campaign.
The Dana who will vote for Gary Johnson (f6a568) — 10/7/2016 @ 4:38 amSuperficial? Yes. Unfair? Yes, like the whole damn year has been to Cruz and his family.
Cruz took what I considered an admirable stand against the depraved GOP candidate, and a stand for his family’s dignity and something I consider central to Texas’s sense of maturity in refusing to bend one’s knee to a man who insulted one’s wife and father and was otherwise condemnable. Pressure mounted, or Cruz decided Hillary really is worse, and now we’re here, and Cruz will have to find a way to handle the superficial and unfair stuff going forward.
Personally, I think Cruz is trying to survive to fight another day, and does not believe Trump being president helps this country. I certainly have never seen anyone explain how President Trump would be good for America to my satisfaction. He’s proposed so many new programs and expansions of government and spending that he offers nothing to me, a conservative. He’s flip flopped so hard on immigration that he’s as Amnesty as Hillary and Jeb. He’s all over the place on judges, and I don’t trust him at all on that or anything else.
Worse, he’s sleazy. Just totally sleazy. His empire of gambling and stripping associated with human traffickers and pimps. He boasted when he ditched the mother of his children in the most lurid way, where Trump preyed on his young female employees. He’s praised actual atrocities and promised to greatly curtail our free speech rights to criticize Trump. He’s asked for more gun control.
Please tell me what fact would change your mind about Trump.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 10/7/2016 @ 4:42 amYou’re saying Cruz rules the RINOs? Are you serious? This is a bumper sticker argument but it makes no sense. The establishment clearly preferred Trump to Cruz, and why wouldn’t they? Trump is tied to Hillary, and that’s better than a balanced budget if you’re living on K Street.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 10/7/2016 @ 4:44 amDustin wrote:
I certainly do not believe that Donald Trump being President helps this country; the most that I could say is that he is (somewhat) likely to be less bad than Hillary Clinton as President. His judicial appointments are likely to be less bad than those of Mrs Clinton, and might even be good ones. His spending plans are a disaster, but so are Mrs Clinton’s. His foreign policy sucks, but so does Mrs Clinton’s, and at least he won’t be bullied and pushed around like she would.
The question on the playground when I was in elementary school was: if you were standing up to your neck in [insert slang term for feces here], and someone threw a bucket of [insert slang term for urine here] at your head, would you duck? That’s pretty much how I view this election. The most I can say is that I will be less unhappy if Mr Trump wins than I would be if Mrs Clinton wins.
The Dana who was in elementary school in the 1960s (f6a568) — 10/7/2016 @ 4:51 amDana, I definitely respect that view. I don’t agree with it, but “Hillary is so bad that Trump, as bad as he is, might not be as bad, so I’ll take the risk” is a very limited endorsement and it’s honest.
But to counter that, look at Trump’s Defense Force. Proof fascism could happen here. They are worse than liberal media bias. Look at Trump’s mental instability and insecurity. Proof enough that he would do terrible things if the most powerful man in the free world.
Hillary would be status quo, and we have survived a lot of that. I doubt she’s as bad as Obama, who sought fundamental change. Hillary seeks nothing but the office for use in graft, and will be a slave to our polls.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 10/7/2016 @ 4:55 amHis empire of gambling and stripping associated with human traffickers and pimps.
Tamam.
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2016 @ 4:58 amDustin, saying that Mr Trump wouldn’t be quite as bad as Mrs Clinton is truly damning with faint praise.
As for Mr Trump’s ‘fascism,’ sorry, but it’s difficult for me to believe that he’d be worse than any of the Democrats, who would use all of the powers of government that they could to stamp out freedom of speech. The left would use the power of government to compel people to go along with leftism; they wouldn’t just leave people alone because they aren’t leaving people alone now. The Supreme Court is a huge issue, and it will take only one more leftist Justice to overturn Citizens United v FEC and McDonald v Chicago, eviscerating our First and Second Amendment rights.
About the only positive thing one could say about a Hillary Clinton presidency over a Donald Trump one is that she’s in such poor health that she’s more likely to just plain drop dead in office.
The sadly realistic Dana (f6a568) — 10/7/2016 @ 5:20 amI hope you’re right. I don’t agree, but we can’t know for sure. What I do know is that if Trump did behave as a tyrant, he would have a million little Omarosas gleeful about it.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 10/7/2016 @ 5:42 amNo, this is the opposite. This is Ted Cruz manning up and doing his duty for his people and for his children.
America and the West need to be defended. Trump will. Hillary won’t.
Hat’s off to Ted Cruz.
Denver Guy (4750ec) — 10/7/2016 @ 5:52 amTrump is the leader.
Denver Guy (4750ec) — 10/7/2016 @ 5:53 am“Trump is the leader.”
Which is quite evident from the number of incumbents who warmly welcome him at rallies in battleground states. I simply can’t count the number of photos I’ve seen in the press showing GOP incumbents shaking his hand and trying to stay as close to him as possible since the convention.
I might be able to count them if any existed but photographers just don’t seem to exist at those magic moments.
Rick Ballard (1aa129) — 10/7/2016 @ 6:04 amThis is really nothing, and nobody would notice it if somebody who doesnt like Cruz endirsing Trump hadn’t gone out of his way to citculate it. Even if maybe the Carton campaign circulated it with the Trump Pence signs on purpose, it’s still gone much further than it would have gone without help – and do we know that having the Truump sign in the picture was deliberate? What do we know about the origin of this picture? I would like to know. Maybe the signs were just there, and if Ted Cruz thought anyone would notice and complain, he’d have had his picture taken soemwhere elsd.
The Barton Congressional campaign ia probably littered with Trump Pence signs because the Republican National Committee is paying some of its campaign expenses. This happens with every campaign in a presidential election year. And there is Reince Priebus pushing loyalty to Trump wherever he goes.
I remember in 1984, we had Reagan Levin signs, and people thought they were Reagan signs. There weren’t any real Reagan signs because New York was not a close state (even though Reagan wound up carrying it, for the secod time)
At least here the Trump/Pence signs and the Barton signs are separate. And also you haven’t got Trump alone on the sign.
There is a contest now for (I think) the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. One side wants to mandate that candidates give portions of their campaign funds to the national committee and that the national committee also intervene in primaries – in short it wants to make the Republican Party as centrally controlled as the Democratic Party – and the other wants to have candidates be more independent. It is not good for a party to be centrally controlled. It is destroying actually, all politics.
Sammy Finkelman (6e331b) — 10/7/2016 @ 6:14 am“The Barton Congressional campaign ia probably littered with Trump Pence signs”
Perhaps, but the Joe Barton for Congress website is remarkably untainted by any reference whatsoever.
Rick Ballard (1aa129) — 10/7/2016 @ 6:33 am@vdare has a great tweet:
Denver Guy (4750ec) — 10/7/2016 @ 6:53 amI was assuming not. I assumed all along that Cruz planned this.
If not, he surely assumed something like this would happen and welcomed it.
His Facebook piece was a deliberate attempt to get into the good graces of Trumpers and that’s how I saw this too.
Patterico (bcf524) — 10/7/2016 @ 7:16 amDenver Guy,
Trump is the guy calling for Amnesty, remember? And he doesn’t want Republicans to win. He wanted Hillary to be president and thinks W was the worst president in American history, and has saved most of his anger for conservatives who didn’t bow down to him. He’s pretty much Cindy Sheehan only more Amnesty.
You’re right that Amnesty + voting for illegal immigrants is a terrible idea for GOP prospects, but is that really the only reason you care about it? Engineering election results? That’s how the democrats think.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 10/7/2016 @ 7:16 amThere is proof that fascism can be one here but not by Trump since he’s never been in public office and has had no chance to display that.
Rev. Hoagie® (785e38) — 10/7/2016 @ 7:20 amLOL with the ‘Yeah, Trump is awful, but because he’s never held office he’s basically got a perfect record’ argument. That one’s kinda old at this point.
And if you’re going to copy and past someone else’s work, at least use a hyperlink too. Come on, man.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 10/7/2016 @ 7:31 amCruz trying to help conservatives get elected. How dare he!
We’d much rather look forward to more fun and games with Hillary, right?
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/10/07/deja-vu-two-bankers-boxes-hillary-e-mails-missing-fbi-probe/
Missing boxes… AGAIN. Say it isn’t so Joe.
NJRob (a07d2e) — 10/7/2016 @ 7:34 amResponding to my earlier question, our gracious host wrote (#84):
Why would you assume that the photographer and/or photo editor weren’t laughing? Do you still assume that? Do you think the mainstream media, or any of the “pilers-on” whom you chose to feature on your blog — Chait? really? at least you had the grace to rhetorically rinse your mouth and spit after linking him — are not still trying to drive a stake through the political heart of Ted Cruz? Tell me why, if so.
As I’ve said above, I agree with you that it’s certain that Cruz knew he’d be photographed in front of Trump/Pence (or just Trump) signs in the Fort Worth GOP HQ, just as he was at the GOP convention.
But why do you think Cruz “welcomed” that? Why do you project that onto, when he’s never said that, and when it’s exactly the opposite of what he’s actually said? Even if you think Cruz is, in his heart, now a Donald Trump toadie like Chris Christie or Jeff Sessions, point to the evidence besides your imagination, please. “Welcome” is a pretty high standard, and you’re nowhere close to it yet in your marshalling of evidence, I respectfully submit.
And you’ve ignored another of my questions, which I assure you was not rhetorical but sincere, and indeed, the most important one I asked: What, short of sulking in a cave until election day, could Ted Cruz have done to satisfy you, Patrick?
As I see it, his choice was to either break his word to the GOP and the voting public that he would support the GOP nominee, or to keep it. And as I’ve written before (but don’t recall you discussing), Trump’s outrageous conduct, even his own repeated waffling (before Cruz dropped out) on whether he (Trump) would keep his parallel pledge, doesn’t legally or morally release Cruz from his commitment, because it wasn’t a commitment made to Trump. I think he’s anything but happy about having to keep his word, but I think he’s making the smallest effort to comply with it that can still be characterized as “good faith.”
So pretend you’re him, subject to the commitment he made, but with your own preferred ethical compass. Would you have tackled the photographer and smashed his camera, when you saw him crouching down below the level at which you were sitting, speaking on the phone, so that he could be sure to fill the top right 3/4ths of the frame with Trump/Pence signs?
I don’t know why “all you can do is pile on and help make fun of the guy.” The cool kids are piling on. The cool kids play fast and loose with what Cruz actually says, as when Chait suggests that Cruz was saying on the telephone something completely different than what the video shows he actually said, or what your own textual description of that video shows. Unless one engages in that fantasy projection, this isn’t a funny photo.
Beldar (fa637a) — 10/7/2016 @ 9:01 amBeldar, I think some people feel betrayed by Cruz’s actions.
But the important question is the one you posed: what should he have done?
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 10/7/2016 @ 9:14 amOver the past months, in these comments and elsewhere in the conservative blogosphere, I have read and repeatedly reread the standard GOPe critique of Cruz: “He is not a team player.” But, of course, there is truth to it. Cruz has been a one-man cabal against the graft and corruption of the establishment right. In what sense does that constitute a moral failing? I suppose if it’s your graft and corruption that is at stake, as it is to the GOPe, it is an enormous failing. To the rest of us, not so much.
Many of these conservative commenters who have taken up the “not-a-team-player” cry should know better. We are lucky to have such a Will Kane in the upper chamber. To criticize Cruz for his intransigence is to criticize honesty and principle. Unfortunately, this has been a particularly effective critique because, among many conservatives, being a team player matters. It matters to me. But there are times when it is even more important to stand apart when the team has become a self-serving racket. This is one of those times.
With the growing crescendo of Trump backers denouncing his motives, Cruz is now trying to demonstrate his team player bona fides. I hardly blame him. Somehow, the equally shrill #NeverTrump mob thinks that working a phone bank, while sitting in front of a Trump sign, demonstrates a great moral lapse. It doesn’t matter to these critics that Cruz, while working in support of down-ticket candidates at his home state’s Republican Party headquarters, was delivering exactly the same message he delivered at the Republican convention: Cruz urged the person he was calling to “come out and vote on election day,” while never promoting, or even mentioning, the Trump candidacy. But to these excitable #NeverTrumpers, substance hardly matters. I find it difficult to imagine a sillier or more superficial critique. With so many on the Right taking up the Trump banner, at what sort of conservative function would there not be Trump posters on display? Is Cruz supposed to run from any stage with a Trump/Pence poster in view?
I thought Allahpundit’s comments on this were especially insipid. It is hard to take seriously any observer who invokes the word “optics” when referring to something other than the physics of light. To most adults, what matters is substance, not “optics.”
ThOR (c9324e) — 10/7/2016 @ 9:25 amMr Jester asked:
I’m guessing that our esteemed host would have said, “Kept his mouth shut.”
That’s what I will say, anyway. Not endorse Mr Trump, not make calls for Mr Trump, but just say nothing, nothing at all, with regard to this election. Everyone would assume that he wasn’t supporting Mr Trump, but that would be their assumptions, not his statements.
Thing is, it has to be asked how that helps his plans for the future. By endorsing Mr Trump, he probably saved himself a primary challenge in 2018, and helps his 2020 campaign, if there is one.
The snarky Dana (f6a568) — 10/7/2016 @ 9:28 amAmazing.
Do you guys ever stand back and listen to what you’re saying?
No wonder True Conservatives haven’t managed to win a Presidential race in nearly forever, since Reagan left office.
The most important thing to you is some sort of Purity, not winning. You still haven’t figured out that unless you WIN it doesn’t matter how great your policies are.
fred-2 (ce04f3) — 10/7/2016 @ 9:53 amBy endorsing Shorty, Cruz foreclosed any opportunity to be blamed for a Trump loss. Or to allege he is not a man of his word because he failed to follow through on his promise to support the party nominee. These were rational choices by a man with a long-term objective and the patience and intelligence to follow through on that plan.
Trump is making a lot of us crazy. Throughout the campaign season, the anger many felt about the astonishing popularity of Trump manifested itself in ugliness directed at other Republican candidates in the running, as well as at pundits, journalists and the like, for their failure to dislodge him. The Trumphilic seem even more unhinged. Cruz is doing his best to steer clear of crazies. I can’t blame him.
ThOR (c9324e) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:05 amSpot on fred-2. Which is why you will never hear me complain about the Democrats paying illegals and winos $2.00 a shot to go from precinct to precinct in mini-buses and vote for dead people who are still registered.
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:06 am@ The snarky Dana, #92:
Without speaking to the first of your conclusions, I can tell you that the second is wrong.
If Cruz were going to back Trump, the best time to do it would have been soon after he withdrew — perhaps not that same day, but a respectable amount of time. And he definitely shouldn’t have unloaded on Trump like he did. Instead, he chose to withhold his endorsement, then go to the convention and double down by telling people to “vote your conscience” instead of “vote for Donald Trump.” That also could have worked, as a long-term strategy…because you’re playing to a base of people who don’t like Trump. But now he’s pissed off those people by aligning himself with Trump.
So who will support Cruz? Trump fans who don’t like that he publicly dissed their guy? Never-Trump advocates who are angry at his endorsement? What’s his base? If he’d picked a side and stuck with it, he’d probably have a group of supporters to call on when he needed them. Now, no matter what your stand is on Trump, you probably don’t trust Cruz, and you may well not like him either.
Ironically, the person who may come out of this cycle the best is Mike Pence. No one can say that he opposed Trump, since he was on the ticket…but by refusing to defend the worst of what Trump said and did in the recent debate, he’s gotten some cachet with the Never-Trumpers too. And, since he won’t be governor of Indiana starting early next year, and he won’t be a senator or congressman either: 1) he won’t have to take positions/vote on any controversial issues, 2) he won’t have to make any politically unpopular execustive decisions, and 3) his schedule will be totally clear for such activities as meeting donors, attending dinners and fundraisers, and giving public speeches. If there’s a book tour in there as well, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:15 amSorry — my comment at #96 should have read “after a respectable amount of time.” Also, I didn’t proofread closely enough to notice that I put an extra letter in “executive.”
Clearly I need a break. It’s sushi time.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:18 amWhat the good Rev. Hoagie said.
Did you see where the Smithsonian display on African American history has Anita Hill but not Clarence Thomas….
Btw, Rev., It’s gone..
Nothing left of the Oak Lane Diner except a sign and a space with heavy machinery in it…
(Another btw, what do you call steam shovels that don’t run on steam anymore???)
MD in Philly (a25b20) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:23 amAh, but before I go — @ Beldar, #89:
Respectfully disagree. By this logic, if the United States and Russia both make a nuclear disarmament pledge to the United Nations, and then Russia goes back on it, the United States would have no other moral choice but continuing to draw down — regardless of what that might mean for the balance of world power, and perhaps even the survival of the American people.
My word may be my bond, but it is not my suicide pact.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:26 amPence will be strong in 2020 because he’ll spend the next 4 years out of the limelight?
ThOR (c9324e) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:26 amThe FBI agreeing ahead of time to destroy evidence,
MD in Philly (a25b20) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:26 amso outrageous you have to ask yourself two or three times what are you missing.
You can’t please everyone all of the time,
MD in Philly (a25b20) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:28 amAnd in a crazy world a reasonable person apparently can’t please many people any time.
Backhoe, MD.
Not to be confused with “Back, ho! I’m married.”
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:31 amExcept where he got up on TV in 2012 and took Trump’s endorsement.
He would have taken Brad Pitt’s endorsement, too. Doesn’t mean he would have endorsed Brad Pitt for President. I know the difference can be hard to understand, but it’s a YUGE one. Trust me.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:42 amThank you, nk.
MD in Philly (a25b20) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:49 amOne mystery down,
many left to go…
Our Philadelphia physician asked:
We call them excavators.
The Dana who runs a concrete plant (f6a568) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:53 am@ThoR:Pence will be strong in 2020 because he’ll spend the next 4 years out of the limelight?
Progressives are already saying, right now, that Pence is far worse than Trump.
The little subhead there is revealing: Trump might blow up the world, but Pence would take us back to 1954. And that would be worse, to them, than to be dead.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:56 amBut the important question is the one you posed: what should he have done?
In a political party, there is a limit to what you can do and expect the party to support you in the future.
Sure, Cruz has done a lot without GOP support, but when he had the GOP nomination for the Senate, they did not turn their backs on him. If he had won the 2016 nomination, he would have had a lot of support, and those same party imperatives would have made it impossible for McConnell & Co to withhold THEIR endorsements.
One CAN cross the line and refuse to support your party’s nominee, or even support the opposition, but it effectively ends your career in the party. Witness Leiberman. Sure, Romney DID retreat to a (well-appointed) cave in now-silent opposition. Sure the Presidents Bush + Jeb! make no secret of their disdain. They’re all done anyway.
The real issue isn’t Cruz’ tepid endorsement, but what happens in the GOP after Trump loses. Hopefully it starts with some saner primary rules. If the GOP had the Dems’ rules, the Convention would have been open and Trump would not be the nominee.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:56 amPence will be strong in 2020 because he’ll spend the next 4 years out of the limelight?
No one who embraced Trump will have any chance of anything in 2020. The Trumpsters will be hard to find (“oh, I suppported a lot of his policies, but the man was fatally flawed, donchaknow”) and everyone and his brother will come out as #Nevertrump.
Kind of like France in ’46, where everyone had been in the Resistance.
Pro forma endorsements won’t be held against people, but Pence, and probably Ryan will have a lot of ‘splaining to do.
The one thing that Trump WILL change is the attitude of the party towards unequal trade deals and immigration rules that harm American workers. H1-B is dead man walking.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 10/7/2016 @ 11:03 amI’ll defer to the professional.
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2016 @ 11:12 am70.Is anyone, even our esteemed host, surprised to discover that an elected politician is a politician? If this obeisance gets him the Supreme Court nomination, I s’pose it will have been worth it.
The chance of a nomination by the Trump Administration would be a clever bone to toss to ideologues in the pit to chew on but given his history to irk his colleagues, the chances of a confirmation are zilch. His immediate battle will be to even stay in the Senate. He’ll likely be challenged in the primaries. Oops– there’s likely a ‘Senator Perry’ in Texas’ future.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/7/2016 @ 11:14 amDCSCA wrote:
Unless the Democrats retake the Senate, unlikely if Mr Trump wins, the Senate would certainly approve Mr Cruz’s nomination: it gets the RINO-labels off their backs, it eliminates conservative primary challenges, and it gets Mr Cruz out of their hair. They wouldn’t have to put up with him anymore.
The Republican Dana (f6a568) — 10/7/2016 @ 11:32 am@112 Unless the Democrats retake the Senate, unlikely if Mr Trump wins, the Senate would certainly approve Mr Cruz’s nomination: it gets the RINO-labels off their backs, it eliminates conservative primary challenges, and it gets Mr Cruz out of their hair. They wouldn’t have to put up with him anymore.
He’d have to be nominated. Iffy. Clear the Judicial Committee. More iffy. Then win a Senate vote– not a chance. In case you missed it, his colleagues aren’t particularly fond of him– let alone inclined to reward him.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/7/2016 @ 11:45 amDCSCA, your constant predictions have taken on a consistently absurd tone to them. A lot of the stuff you claim to know is just not true.
NK’s right. The Senate would be so happy to be rid of Cruz, and he would be the finest Justice any of them could ever pick, albeit so conservative I doubt all the democrats went along with it happily.
But this is a moot point. President Hillary will not appoint Cruz.
Dustin (ba94b2) — 10/7/2016 @ 12:13 pm@114- The Senate would be so happy to be rid of Cruz.
Which is why he will be ‘primaried’ by Perry and be financed by the very party people who want to rid themselves of him. The Senate will never reward Tedtoo with a confirmation for a lifetime appointment. They don’t like him.
You are clinging to a political corpse.
“I see dead people.” – “The Sixth Sense” – 1999
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/7/2016 @ 12:21 pm@ ThOR, #100:
Not at all what I said. Pence may be in a very strong position in 2020, partly because he’ll have a claim to support from both the Trumpers and the Never-Trumpers, but also partly because he won’t have to anger anyone by making big decisions. If he has serious presidential ambitions, then I expect to see him in the limelight plenty — but not in power.
Do you understand the difference between being a sitting congressman/senator who either has to please his constituents or his leadership on a vote, and being the talking head on television who only has to stand up and say, “Well, how to vote on this bill would be a difficult choice, and you can find merit on both sides of the argument”?
Do you understand the difference between being the sitting governor of a state, where you may have to choose which of two important special interest groups to piss off…and being the keynote speaker at fundraising dinners for both groups, where you can safely play to the biases of your audience while hedging just enough that if your quotes leak, the other group doesn’t feel slighted?
Because you can be sure that Mike Pence understands the difference.
I’m not saying he will be the nominee. But right now, I see no one in a stronger position. Not Cruz, not Rubio, not Kasich…no one.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 10/7/2016 @ 12:24 pm“@70- Senator Cruz has been a great voice for conservative causes, but what he hasn’t been is a very effective senator. I think he recognizes that himself, and has decided that he needs to be more of a team player if he wants the rest of the team to play for him.”
‘Senator Cruz has been a great voice for conservative causes?’ Except he hasn’t. In fact, he’s been quite the opposite. It’s a little late for on the job training now that he has pissed off everyone in government — not to mention families and school kids shut out of national monuments and museums visiting the Capitol when he shutdown he government, eh? Or wasting government time reading Dr. Seuss at taxpayer’s expense to grab attention. Which makes it all the more apparent he’d have been a pretty poor nominee, let alone a CIC. Ideology is out. Pragmatism is in.
This horse is played out. Find a fresh mount.
“Holy horseshoe!” – Robin [Burt Ward] ‘Batman- The Movie’, 1966
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/7/2016 @ 12:50 pm” Ideology is out. Pragmatism is in.”
Then you must be impressed that Cruz endorsed Trump and took a turn at the phone bank. Can’t get more pragmatic than that. If Cruz keeps this up, he’ll be your man in short order.
The horse is played out? You must be new to the party. We like to nominate stale perennials. It makes us oldsters feel young. Nolan Ryan still makes my fantasy baseball roster.
ThOR (c9324e) — 10/7/2016 @ 1:46 pmI like having DCSCA around. He’s like happy, but without the warmth and subtlety.
ThOR (c9324e) — 10/7/2016 @ 1:52 pmGovernor Pence has moved beyond “Mike who?”, without a doubt.
The last Republican Vice Presidential nominee to be promoted to the top of the ticket in a subsequent election was George Bush Sr., a very long time ago. But even Bush Sr. isn’t a particularly good parallel to Pence, because he was the first runner-up, and a very well known pol, before Reagan picked him. It is an improbable path to the White House.
ThOR (c9324e) — 10/7/2016 @ 2:03 pm@ Dana Who: How does a sitting U.S. Senator who’s publicly committed to helping fellow Republicans in state and federal races fulfil that commitment while keeping his mouth shut? Your suggestion is equivalent to saying that Cruz should stay in a cave until election day. He hasn’t. Instead, he’s actively bashing Hillary and the entire Democratic Party, and he’s enthusiastically fundraising and campaigning for down-ticket Republicans, and he’s glowing in his enthusiasm for Mike Pence.
Cruz has indeed “kept his mouth shut” when, for example, directly challenged — indeed, skillfully baited — by Evan Smith in that Texas Tribune video interview, when Evan Smith tried as hard as anyone possibly could to induce Cruz to simply say out loud, in his own voice, that Donald Trump is “fit.” Had Cruz gone along with that, had he lied and said that in his (Cruz’) opinion, Trump is “fit,” then our host would have grounds to complain, and, as Simon Jester suggested, other former (fairweather) Cruz fans would have grounds for disappointment. Cruz hasn’t done that; compare, e.g., Chris Christie and Jeff Sessions, who are indeed Trumpkin shills themselves now. It’s Cruz’ enemies who are pretending that Cruz has somehow sold out; and if his fans are suckers enough to fall for that nonsense — if they think there’s any substance, for example, to the fantasy that people like Chait conjure up, and which then gets repeated even here — then that’s terribly unfortunate but, alas, typical of these times.
@ Demosthenes (#116): I don’t find your comparison persuasive. First, it’s hyperbolic to compare campaign commitments to treaties signed by the Executive and ratified by the Senate. And I don’t know what you have in mind when you suggest that the U.S. and Russia would commit not to each other, but to the U.N., on such a treaty. The U.S. has certainly sponsored and adhered to nonproliferation resolutions of the U.N., and indeed those were the legal basis for the sanctions that the U.S. and other nations, in cooperation through the U.N. and other international organizations, have imposed against violators like Iran. But Trump’s attacks on Cruz’ family, while wicked and petty and shameful, were nevertheless rhetorical. You can engage in metaphors like “political suicide,” but they’re just metaphors, and guesses at that. Second, and more importantly to my way of thinking — and, I believe, to Cruz’, based on his public statements (not guesswork or projection) — Ted Cruz knew full well that Trump was among the candidates whom Cruz might someday be obliged to “support” under the terms of Cruz’ pledges. At that time, no one — and certainly not Ted Cruz — had any illusions about whether Trump’s word was good or his own commitment sincere. Cruz committed anyway, hoping (as I did) that the nominee would end up being anyone but Trump. In making good his pledges now, Cruz surely isn’t enjoying what he’s doing — how could he, when even people like our host ridicule and mock him for it, regardless of his actual words and deeds, based on camera angles and sloganeering, and when that was entirely predictable too? But just like opposing ethanol subsidies in Iowa was something he felt compelled to do by principle, despite obvious and certain political blowback, he felt compelled to keep this promise.
Beldar (fa637a) — 10/7/2016 @ 2:22 pm@ Beldar, #121:
The analogy doesn’t have to be realistic for my point to hold. That point was: when your opponent refuses to play by the rules, you are no longer bound by them.
If Cruz is really just trying to keep his word, then he’s gone about it in a way that will ensure everyone who doesn’t like him (or what he’s done, or what he’s doing now) will have a reason to pile on. In any cae, I remain less than sanguine about his national political prospects moving forward.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 10/7/2016 @ 2:32 pmted made his own bed
now he has to lie in it
happyfeet (28a91b) — 10/7/2016 @ 2:35 pmwith Amanda?
mg (31009b) — 10/7/2016 @ 4:02 pm@118 – Can’t get more pragmatic than that.
Except he could. Like at the convention before a national audience, where it counted most- and neutralize his tirade at withdrawl.
His street cred is dead.
The more he tries to work and play well with others, the more calculated it appears- which is in direct opposition to why ideologues championed him in the first place. He’s not a happy warrior. Pence is.
The parade has passed Tedtoo; the flag picked up by Pence. So with a frown on his face, he starts to play telephone… and is just beginning to realize it. And in his rearview mirror– ‘Senator Perry.’
‘Oops!’ – Rick Perry, 2012 Primary debate
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/7/2016 @ 4:35 pmRealpolitik bites.
nk (dbc370) — 10/7/2016 @ 4:36 pmYou must be new to the party. We like to nominate stale perennials. It makes us oldsters feel young.
=yawn= Mom was a Goldwater Girl. We never let her live it down.
“I know you better than you know yourself.”- Nurse Diesel [Cloris Leachman] ‘High Anxiety’ – 1977
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/7/2016 @ 4:40 pm@ Demosthenes, who wrote (#122):
And how could he have kept his word in a way that did not so ensure?
From a cave? With his mouth closed?
Beldar (fa637a) — 10/7/2016 @ 6:54 pmBeldar,
As this election season progresses and I see the rancor that has developed, I appreciate as always your polite comments. The main thing I want to emphasize in my comment is that I respect you and DRJ — and when both of you indicate that you think I am wrong about something, it makes me pause and at least wonder whether I am headed down the wrong path. If I convey nothing else in this comment, I want to make sure I convey my respect for you personally and for your opinions. You could stop reading at the end of this paragraph and nothing would really be lost.
That said, you asked me some questions and I’d like to answer them. I’ll express myself forthrightly and perhaps forcefully, but everything I say is qualified by what I have just said.
I could almost make my case by simply referring to today’s Washington Post story. But I’ll say more than that.
You and I have shared a common disgust with Donald Trump and a common admiration for Ted Cruz. We have had to figure out how to respond to the unfortunate event of the GOP nominating one of the most cretinous individuals ever to seek the Presidency. We have reacted in different ways.
I instantly left the party in disgust. Although I continue to recognize the party as the greatest organized force for limited government in the United States and perhaps the planet, it does not seem to represent those principles this cycle, and I anticipated (I believe correctly) that the party would increasingly support Trump and Trumpism. I wanted to separate myself from the insanity until it was over.
And, while in this state, I was looking for a leader who believed in the same principles — the Constitution, liberty, and the free market — and who also rejected Trump. Ted Cruz, my preferred candidate, appeared to be that man, and I was proud of him.
Alas, he decided to throw in with Trump recently, and I was bitterly disappointed. Part of this simply had to do with my view of the importance of family and the grave insults that Trump threw at Cruz’s wife and dad. Sure, Cruz said his wife and father had forgiven Cruz. But I happen to think that it is a husband’s place, and a son’s place, to continue to stand up for a wife and father even if they say they have moved on and forgiven the person. It’s one thing if the offender has truly repented. Of course forgiveness is appropriate then. But if that hasn’t happened, my ethic says, I don’t forgive. I don’t care if my family says they have.
I could be wrong about this, but it’s how I feel.
And I think that Ted knows better. He knew better when he called out Trump in May. And I think he knew better last week, and yesterday, and today.
You question whether the photographer was mocking Cruz, or whether Cruz intended this. I say, either Cruz intended to be captured on video with those signs in the background, or he was a fool. One or the other.
Those are my thoughts. But I respect the differing views offered by you and DRJ. Sincerely, I do.
Patterico (bcf524) — 10/7/2016 @ 7:20 pmSomeone should point out that through surrogates Ted compromised the “lay off the family” principle by objectifying Mrs. Trump as a matter of strategy on the eve of the Utah caucus.
So this is a right and proper step down when compared to what he is capable of.
papertiger (82d7e8) — 10/7/2016 @ 8:09 pmI say, either Cruz intended to be captured on video with those signs in the background, or he was a fool. One or the other.
We know he’s not a fool. Just foolish.
Find a fresh mount to ride, fellas. Texas is a big state.
“I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, azz-kickers, … and Methodists.” – Hedley Lamarr [Harvey Korman] ‘Blazing Saddles’ – 1974
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/7/2016 @ 8:25 pmBut it’s good for Trump to deal with Cruz as prep for dealing with Clinton, who has no scruples at all to compromise.
Have you seen that commercial where they show Hillary on a soap box over the years claiming she is on the side of children?
Gag worthy. Planned Parenthood’s champion on the side of children.
papertiger (82d7e8) — 10/7/2016 @ 8:52 pm@ Beldar, #128:
He couldn’t have. But, as I have now said twice, when your enemy breaks his word you are not morally bound to keep yours. In fact, I will go further, and say that keeping your oath with respect to a dishonorable oathbreaker is a mistake, and that showing respect toward someone who has disrespected you and yours is ultimately destructive of respect itself.
You appear to disagree with my moral stance. That is fine. I am glad to see someone who has such respect for honesty and integrity as virtues.
I will, however, point out — gently — that there are other virtues; that we live in a fallen world; and that one must sometimes choose the lesser of two evils.
(That last paragraph should not be construed as an endorsement of Hillary Clinton, or of Donald Trump.)
Demosthenes (09f714) — 10/7/2016 @ 10:41 pmDenver Guy (4750ec) — 10/7/2016 @ 6:53 am
By reversing their position.
Actually an amnesty would help the Republican Party, by possibly killing the issue, and putting it to rest and taking it off the table, but they could still get killed by opposition to legal immigration. It might find a way to keep the issue alive. I read in the New York Times, there was a woman – legal resident obviously – who never became a citizen until this year because she was afraid that somehow she’d could be deported if Donald Trump was elected
(By the way, the reason she got into the newspaper was that she was about the only person a voter registration drive group of people registered in some place in Florida one day. (all the other people presumably were already registered, didn’t want to register, or weren’t eligible, but this woman had just become a citizen in April, so she was ripe for the picking.)
“Asians” (a category that includes also people from the Indian subcontinent so it’s really a disparate unrelated group, but still) were voting Republican, but now the Republicans are starting to lose them, and they are mostly worried about changes to legal immigraton.
If the Republican Party wants to write off anyone related to, friendly with, attending church with or doing business with with immigrants or the children of immigrants, it will be committing suicide, as there will be more people like that every day.
The Republican Party, or maybe Trump, is doing well only in places, like Ohio, that have not been hit by immigration. (since places with a lot of immigrants don’t suffer, places with their presence are not a place to gain votes because nothing bad has happened, or something that would have been much worse has been prevented. Only places where nothing has happened an get scared.)
Mike Pence didn’t point out WHY some of what Tim Kaine said was unreal – Kaine was having the Republican Party, or Trump, wanting to remove citizenship from people and then deporting them!
If depriving people born in this country of citizenship is the strategy of the Republican Party, it’s lost. It will indeed get worse elecrion after election.
They could recover by being for more legal immigration, especially any categories of immigrants that Democrats are not for, or interested in.
The jobs argument, BTW, is nonsense. I just read this past week a related statistic: The pay of women has gone up by 32% in the last 30 or 40 years or whatever, but the pay of men has gone down by only 3%. What does that mean? Women now maybe get better jobs, but men are none the worse for it. The same sort of thing is also true with regard to immigrants. People getting opportunities does not make the people who previously had opportunities worse off.
Sammy Finkelman (6e331b) — 10/8/2016 @ 8:09 pm“But, as I have now said twice, when your enemy breaks his word you are not morally bound to keep yours. In fact, I will go further, and say that keeping your oath with respect to a dishonorable oathbreaker is a mistake, and that showing respect toward someone who has disrespected you and yours is ultimately destructive of respect itself.”
Yeah, well *voters* didn’t see it that way.
Voters saw:
1) A man who found an excuse to go back on his oath.
2) A man who really did think politics was beanbag.
Also, (although you are putting words in his mouth) saw a man who couldn’t tell the difference between an adversary and an enemy. The 16 Republican primary contenders were adversaries to one another, but the ENEMY was the Democratic Party.
fred-2 (ce04f3) — 10/8/2016 @ 8:11 pmI’m old enough to remember when it was thought wrong for the Democrat nominee to declare her political opponents the “enemy.”
Patterico (bcf524) — 10/8/2016 @ 8:25 pmThat whole “retreat to a cave and keep your mouth closed” option has to be looking more and more attractive to Cruz with each passing hour.
Patterico (bcf524) — 10/8/2016 @ 8:26 pmTrump’s attacks on Heidi were strictly personal, between him and the Cruz family; but the nonsense about Cruz’s father, and the lies about Cruz’s supposed affairs, were an attempted fraud on the voters. Cruz can forgive him for the first, but it’s not up to him to forgive him for the second and third.
Anyway, what difference at this point does it make? It’s like the first year law school case on whether you can attempt to murder a dead man. The new revelations about Trump made Cruz’s support meaningless.
nk (dbc370) — 10/8/2016 @ 8:31 pmI previously said about a modern remake of a movie that I would put
The Democrats as the Scribes and Pharisees
Donald Trump as Barabbas
Ted Cruz as John the Baptist
but he failed so I was looking for a new John the Baptist.
Perhaps now is the time for Ted Cruz to apply for the role of Peter: “The rooster crowed, and I have faced my error. It won’t happen again. This way to a Conservative future.”
John Hitchcock (7fcee0) — 10/8/2016 @ 9:00 pmI think Cruz was a fool to endorse Trump and a bigger fool if he is now thinking about retracting his endorsement. What made Cruz special is his principles but he doesn’t seem to care about principles anymore.
Maybe the photo was an attempt to ingratiate himself with Trump supporters or maybe it wasn’t. But, to me, the photo pales in comparison with endorsing Trump. The photo says Cruz’s principles are for rent. The endorsement says they are for sale.
DRJ (15874d) — 10/8/2016 @ 9:17 pmRev. Hoagie® (785e38) — 10/7/2016 @ 7:20 am quoting Fix News’s Catherine Herridge somewhere:
What’s a”banker’s box?
Anyway what that seems to be about is that when Hillary Clinton’s lawyers turned over her self-selected printed out emails – and printing out documents is an old lawyers’s tacic to make the contents diffifult to search, only they hadn’t counted on improvements in scaning technology AND the State Department’s later willingness to spend money…
When they turned over those e-mails to the State Department’s Office of Information Programs and Services on December 5, 2014 – all before any member of Congress had a clue about any of this…
They picked up 12 of these boxes.
But they had been previously told there were 14 of these boxes!
Now the 14 boxes couldn’t have contained ALL of the emails, because she turned over only about half of them.
What this raises the question of, is if somebody manually went what had already been selectively captured or retrieved by the almost certainly reverse-engineered process they used, and manually removed about 1/7 of the material that remained. (One thing they have claimed is that no lawyer for Hillary Clinton manually made any decisions about which of the e-mails to turn over.)
The FBI report about that is supposed to be readable here.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/10/06/pages-40-44-fbi-probe-into-clinton-emails.html
One theory is that the missing material might be from the first 3 months of her tenure (but that would not amount to 1/7, and those were probably not on the same server)
Also from Catherine Herridge:
At one point he told the State Department’s Near East Affairs Bureau that they didn’t need to classify something in order to prevent it from being disclosed – which raises the quesiton in my mind if some of the upgrading of classification was actually done at the instigation of Hillary’s people.
There’s also another specific example where he asked the FBI that its classification be removed. There’s not enough detail there to tell you what was really going on there.
Sammy Finkelman (6e331b) — 10/8/2016 @ 9:18 pmBut we all make mistakes, including politicians. Cruz can learn from this if he has some humility. I hope he does but that’s his weakness.
DRJ (15874d) — 10/8/2016 @ 9:20 pmIt’s a kind of file box commonly used for legal or financial files. They may use them to hold important papers and evidence in the DOJ, FBI, and Congress.
DRJ (15874d) — 10/8/2016 @ 9:24 pmIt’s a kind of file box commonly used for legal or financial files. They may use them to hold important papers and evidence in the DOJ, FBI, and Congress
DRJ (15874d) — 10/8/2016 @ 9:25 pm139. When you deny me a third time is my favorite part of Palm Sunday mass. I wonder if tomorrow night ends up like the episode of the Mao Tse-Tung show at the end of “Network”.
urbanleftbehind (847a06) — 10/8/2016 @ 9:38 pm@145- Sybil the Soothsayer would know.
“The Mao Tse-Tung Hour” went on the air March 14th. It received a 47 share. The network promptly committed to 15 shows with an option for 10 more.” – “Network,” 1976
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/8/2016 @ 10:44 pm@ fred-2, #135:
I love it when Trumpers slip up, and admit the truth:
There were actually 17 contenders for the Republican nomination. But you’re right. Only 16 of them were Republicans.
And they were adversaries to each other, not enemies…you’re also right about that. The enemy was indeed the Democratic Party and their major candidates…Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 10/9/2016 @ 8:25 amthese grapes are sour
happyfeet (28a91b) — 10/9/2016 @ 8:28 am