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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
Interesting. Thanks for the link, and also for taking the time to read and respond to the comments.
41?
I’ll vote Rubio on one condition – that the Secret Service prevent Charles Schumer or the Chamber of Commerce from contacting him under any circumstance. They would represent a grave threat to his presidency.
Cruz has my enthusiastic support.
I’m a blood and thunder grade immigration hawk, and I think Trump will stab us in the back. He’s inconsistent to a fault, and he’s actually claimed that he couldn’t find Americans to do work at his resorts – jobs Americans won’t do, unfortunately. It is very hard to describe my loathing for Trump in CoC allowed terms.
Rubio is a recovering amnestaholic, and we need to keep him well away from the sauce for him to stay on the wagon. I think that is doable, especially since we will be watching him for sudden moves toward the tequila cabinet.
This is a rhetorical question, I hope? I don’t need to reconcile Jeff Sessions’ position on anything, thank you.
I think he made a serious error in judgement in supporting Donald Trump and have no interest in supporting Trump myself.
I also have no more interest in listening to you or any other frothers fulminating that Jeff Sessions is a traitor. Bring on the Inquisition!
I repeat, get a grip.
The Constitution that guarantees Jeff Sessions this:
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I would take these arguments more seriously if the people who made them would ever identify anyone who they would find acceptable. It’s really easy to sit on the sidelines and complain that none of the players are good enough. Apparently, it’s also easy to put a jersey on an alligator and send it into the game to chew on people.
Acceptable in what way? I voted for the R’s since I began voting, and I will continue to do so this time be it Trump, Cruz, or Rubio. I was interested in Walker, Jindal, Christie, and Fiorina but they’re all gone and none of them were perfect anyway. I’m well aware that perfect doesn’t exist, but we haven’t come anywhere close to it. Just because there’s no alternative that doesn’t mean our actual choices become good.
Surely Sessions must be wrong; why the entirety of GOPe is sure Trump is a danger to the nation. OR: maybe it’s just that they’re sure he is a danger to their control.
Just sayin’……
OH–and just maybe Sessions knows Cruz better than anyone here does. Again—
Just sayin’…..
If by “control” you mean holding a majority in the Senate, and maybe the House, then yeah – Trump is a big danger to their control.
I think Sessions’ endorsement of Trump reflects poorly on both Sessions and Cruz. Sessions because Trump is opportunistic charlatan manifestly unsuited to the presidency. Cruz because his behavior in the senate has so alienated those who should be his natural allies that a man like Sessions would prefer Trump to him. Cruz claims to be a strong conservative leader, but you can’t be a leader if no one is willing to follow you.
Amen to that.
Yep, surprising.
And yet, via John Fonte @ NRO :
Amy Sherman, a reporter for the Miami Herald, posed the question: “Has Rubio backtracked?” She concluded: “While Rubio has changed his opinion on how the legislation should be passed, we found that he hasn’t changed his views on the underlying policy issues.” Sherman quotes the Cato Institute’s Alex Nowrasteh, a strong advocate of the 2013 Senate bill: “Senator Rubio’s current position on handling the illegal immigrant population is very similar to his opinion in 2013. The only difference is that now Senator Rubio wants several piecemeal bills rather than one comprehensive bill — a stylistic rather than a substantive change.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/431799/marco-rubio-immigration
That is not from Breitbart, that’s the Miami Herald and Cato.
Also: “Senator Rubio is now a member of the Gang of Six, the sponsors of the Immigration Innovation Act of 2015 (known as I-Squared), which would double the number of H-1B “guest worker” visas for low-wage foreign tech workers, give work permits to their spouses and some categories of foreign students, and increase permanent immigration.”
So, representing the state where Disney just received such negative backlash for laying off their tech workers to hire cheap foreign labor, he is trying to double the amount of cheap foreign tech labor.
He should learn to stay away from gangs.