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Why Didn’t Sessions Endorse Cruz?
In recent threads, members have speculated as to why Sen. Jeff Sessions endorsed Donald Trump instead of Sen. Ted Cruz. On the Corner, Mark Krikorian offers his take:
This is purely speculation, but I think what probably made up [Sessions’s] mind to endorse — and to endorse Trump instead of Cruz — was the imperative to stop Rubio. For some reason, the conventional wisdom has gelled that Cruz can’t stop Trump, whereas Rubio can. I think that’s nuts — unlike Rubio, Cruz is likely to actually win his home state. (I’ll be voting for him tomorrow in Virginia.)
He continues:
In any case, Rubio is clearly the establishment choice to be the anti-Trump. And a President Rubio combined with a Speaker Ryan is a nightmare scenario for immigration; many people see it as essentially guaranteeing a Chamber of Commerce–approved amnesty/immigration-surge bill, different from the Gang of Eight only in not letting the amnesty recipients vote.
[…]
I’m confident that we would succeed — yet again — in stopping a Rubio-Ryan amnesty push in 2017; Sessions apparently is not, and sees Trump as the only way to nip it in the bud. Since he’s the one who’s actually waged and won these fights in Congress, we can’t dismiss his assessment.
Your thoughts?
Published in Domestic Policy, Immigration
This is a well reasoned theory. and I believe it to be a good explanation.
I also believe Sessions would not have endorsed Trump if he found him to be a danger to the nation.
Given Paul Ryan as speaker , I have little confidence amnesty could be stopped under any circumstance if Cruz or Trump is not elected.
One of those two must make it across the finish line. I do not trust the house or senate leadership to work against the interest of their donors without the White House to stop it.
I am now down to two candidates.
TKC, I actually think you are down to one. Cruz is committed while Trump is flexible. Make sure you get the NYT tape before you pull the lever for Trump.
Sessions suffers from a warped and perverted view of economic fundamentals. He fails to understand the lecture board certainty that free trade with brutal regimes with no labor or environmental protections and open border employment policies provide more aggregate utils for mankind. Sessions’ understanding is warped and perverted by a sympathetic and common sense observation of how these policies undermine the wages and profits of workers and small businessmen in his state and a rather ornery insistence that he represents those workers and businessmen.
The Cruz campaign is irretrievably broken; losing evangelicals across the Bible Belt. In AL, Trump is beating Cruz by 2.5-1.
Sessions is supporting the only candidate who supports, however imperfectly and incoherently, his positions on trade and illegal immigration who still has a chance to win.
Of course, Rubio could have been on that stage receiving Sessions’ gentlemanly endorsement while sweeping to a March 1 clearing of the GOP field and a November clock cleaning of a aged Hillary Clinton.
But a deep and enduring commitment to not enforcing federal and state immigration laws was (and is) too strong.
Hence Trump. What a catastrophe.
This is interesting, but I am a bit confused. Why are we talking about free trade? I thought controlling immigration is the biggie issue for Sessions.
It is likely true that opening the borders to all comers would “provide more aggregate utils for mankind,” but that is not our task as a country. We have far more responsibilities to our citizens than noncitizens.
Is my memory that Sessions enthusiastically supports free trade correct? I am beginning to fear you will show me I am wrong.
Can we wait about 30 hours on that theory for more information? I still have hope.
Yes, agreed.
I never trust the New York Times. I always knew Trump was negotiating, and I am ok with flexible if we stop the future immigrants. Cruz will also take 3/4 of a loaf to get what he wants unless he has an inability to make any deal at all. We just had 8 years of that. Where I worry is Rubio will not stop the new flows.
Say Cruz or Trump and Ryan and McConnell can get Schumer and Reid to agree to real enforcement, deportation of all visa overstays (like every other country in the world) and deportation of anyone with a felony , or any temporary resident who commits a felony, an end to chain migration and maybe some sanity on anchor babies right after a big victory at the polls. I would trade that for non voting green cards to people who have a job and an employer who will sponsor them. Then set up an immigration strategy based on skills the country needs, not just a desire to come get welfare.
If that passed with 80% of the house and senate, lots of democrats voting, it would solve the damn thing for years. Yes, I would take that deal. And I would say that would make Trump or Cruz as guys who got the job done.
I’ve been coming across comments like this fairly often. I frequently take long breaks from political news, and I’m just coming back from one. Ryan used to be the party’s golden boy. What did he do to put him in so many people’s dog house on immigration?
I can answer that in one word: omnibus.
He hasn’t waved his magic wand and undone seven years of President Obama, making himself the Savior of All. Criminal! <sarc off>
I have hope that his calm demeanor belies the furious negotiating and legislative sausage making going on in committee, and that we will see the results of better leadership soon.
He only took the position because he was begged to do so. People should remember what the alternatives were…
That bill was in place long before people begged Ryan to take the position. Have you listened to the Speaker explain himself?
Thanks for sharing that audio, Mama Toad.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/paul-ryan-house-amnesty/2013/06/29/id/512593/
Ryan has been involved in the amnesty deals for quite a while. Immigration has little effect on his district and his donors are quite in favor. Now that he is GOP and Speaker, he also deals with the donor class there.
For the last few years the self-proclaimed “base” of the Party has hated candidates who lost for being losers (e.g., McCain and Romney), and has hated candidates who won for being “Establishment.” So we get a vulgar crazy man, who makes fantasy pronouncements from his fantasy world. Great. Just great.
And by the way, Rubio would be much, much better on border security than Trump. “Mexico will build a wall” my foot. What Mexico will actually do is round up a few hundred thousand criminals and shove them across the border.
My guess is that Mark is correct on Sessions’ reasoning. Like Mark, though, I don’t think it’s very smart because:
Immigration is one of a handful of issues where Americans have shown that they’re willing to buck party loyalty to oppose. I don’t want to be too sanguine on the matter, but — if this is your issue — there will be other opportunities to stop it.
If you don’t believe me, ask George W. Bush and Harry Reid. Conditions with congress will almost certainly be significantly better next year than they were in 2007.
Larry3435
““Mexico will build a wall” my foot. What Mexico will actually do is round up a few hundred thousand criminals and shove them across the border.”
As an American I would see that as an act of war. Wouldn’t you?
For many of us he never got out of the dog house.
When I think threat to the republic I think Rubio….
I don’t understand better conditions? Better for opening the borders further or for hardline immigration enforcement?
Tom I think that is exactly why, if Rubio were to win the WH, that this thing would be slammed through. They will not be stopped again. I get the sense that the CoC GOP is fed up with having to deal with constituents who do not want amnesty and if they get another shot with a President Rubio, they are not going to let it slide.
It is this issue–not anything that would downsize the government–that the GOP is willing to lose elections for and it makes me sickeningly angry.
Read this and then you will know:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/05/02/whats-the-gang-of-eight-outlook/
Tom Meyer
Yes, you are too sanguine.
Substitute “sensible gun laws” for “reforming current immigration laws,” assume all the same dynamics – the donors want it, all the Democrats want it, and the leadership of the GOP wants to finally put this issue behind it – add in a newly elected President who wants it and a Speaker who wants that president to succeed.
Would you still be so sanguine about retaining all your Second Amendment rights, or better yet, strengthening them?
Would the NRA share that opinion?
Unfortunately, there is no equivalent anti-immigration lobby in money and organization to the NRA. Every few years the people of America, with all of the country’s money and influence arrayed against them, have to roll the ball up the hill again all by themselves.
And we know that, faced with an implacable opponent with infinite resources and endless guile, the odds are way against us.
President Rubio? No I see no need to give the transnational crowd another weapon to fire on traditional Americans, thanks.
It’s not just the Omnibus. His commitment to de facto unlimited immigration is deep. Luis Gutierrez has called Ryan his “guiding light” on immigration:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/425445/would-speaker-ryan-push-through-amnesty-mark-krikorian
I suppose you could call it that, but so what? Castro did exactly the same thing. Nobody invaded Cuba. Maybe Trump will turn it into a shooting war. Is that what we’re voting for? Invading and occupying Mexico?
Did anyone want to go to Cuba?
I mean Congress is much more conservative. If immigration hawks successfully rebelled against a second-term GWB and a Democratic Senate, it strikes me that we’ve got a very solid chance against President Rubio — who’s already damaged on the subject — and Paul Ryan, who will have to fight against against his own members.
If we take an average, I agree. The problem is that there is still an entrenched big government, open borders majority in Congress. The mean has been pulled to the right by a much more conservative minority born of the 2010 and 2014 Congressional waves.
Ryan and his predecessor have demonstrated capacity to work against that minority.
There will be a fight, no doubt.
Thank you for the clarification.
As Jeb Bush might tell us, there’s only so much the donors can do against an opposed electorate. Republican congressmen — and a few Democrats — know that their constituents will eat them alive if they vote for Comprehensive Reform. Moreover, the Tea Party has shown that folks are willing to take enormous risks to oust representatives who are out of touch with their constituents, particularly on issues like this.
Probably not, but I’m more of a hawk on the second amendment than I am on immigration (and I do consider myself something of an immigration hawk).
I get trusting Cruz over Rubio on immigration. I don’t get trusting a guy who made his bones in immigrant-dependent businesses over Cruz.
This has long been a question of mine and the only thing I can figure is that the old adage: you never get a second chance to make a first impression holds true.
Trump burst on the scene and started off with deportation and the wall. That is the initial memory stamp many have of him.
Cruz, being from Texas, like Perry, triangulates too much on the issue. Cruz is a much more law and order guy and clearly not in anything resembling a Republican establishment. However, Cruz does not have that initial memory stamp of build a wall and deport ’em all.
The funny thing is that, of all the candidates, the one whose policies would be most effective at ending illegal immigration is Sanders. If Sanders got his $15/hour minimum wage, we would go from being an economy of skilled workers and unskilled illegal workers to an economy of skilled workers and robots. Even if there was an exception in the minimum wage law for the nannies of Upper East Side and Beverly Hills limousine socialists, the demand for illegal workers would dry up very quickly.
This garbage reminds me of Season 1 of Survivor. I remember seeing the promos for the show thinking that it would be a great show. I looked forward to seeing the dynamic of perfect strangers being tossed into a very challenging situation, having to work together to stretch each other to physical, emotional and mental depths that they previously hadn’t known existed within themselves to survive! It turned into a field study of the basest human indignities of our current culture.
I looked forward to seeing the many fine conservatives that have been voted in recently (deep bench?) taking the big stage to debate and bring before the American public true voices of what conservatism can be. Instead we got a bunch of catty stooges making pacts and allegiances to gain immunity idols. I’m starting to hate these people.