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Dispelling the Idea That Ted Cruz Is Unelectable
We’ve reached the point where if the field doesn’t produce an anti-Trump in the next two weeks or so, Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination. Up until Tuesday night, the general feeling was that Marco Rubio could fill that role and that the others should make way for him. That was good, except now, out of 15 contests, Rubio has won exactly one.
That would seem to point to Ted Cruz as the anti-Trump savior. Unfortunately, the thing I hear over and over again from conservatives and some libertarians, is that they prefer Cruz, but that he is unelectable. Just so everybody is clear: I don’t have a guy. Other than being anti-Trump, I don’t have a dog in this fight. But I find fault with the argument that Ted Cruz is unelectable.
First things first, can we all agree that this presidential election cycle is unprecedented? Having a former First Lady as a major party nominee alone makes this a historical election. As does a woman being the major party nominee. As does a candidate who has a non-zero chance of getting indicted between now and election day.
And then there’s Trump. A year ago, I sat in the audience of his CPAC speech and laughed loudly at just about every line. I, and others around me, marveled how he went from General McArthur to Bowe Bergdahl to Iran to a border wall to executive orders to Common Core to the Second Amendment in under 90 seconds. But nobody’s laughing anymore. Donald Trump has defied all models, expectations, and attempts at self immolation.
Add to that the atypical mood of the electorate, the fatigue at the end of an eight-year presidency, the general chaos of the world and the nation, the whims of the electoral process, and it becomes damn near impossible to predict anything.
So then why the assumption that Cruz is unelectable?
Ted Cruz has two enormous things in his favor: he is a master strategist and he has the ambition to win. He realized he needed to win an early state. Since he’s a Senator from Texas, it wasn’t going to be New Hampshire. He realized the key to Iowa was evangelical voters, so from his announcement, Cruz geared his campaign towards winning that block. He has a plan and he executes that plan with enormous discipline. In the debates he stuck to his message and laid low until the number of opponents became manageable. Cruz held off attacking Trump and left the door open to welcome in his supporters until such time as it was no longer practicable. (After all, everyone knew that Trump would eventually self-destruct.)
Even now, in the most recent debate, he let Rubio get down in the muck with Trump. Cruz’s attacks were more subtle, repeatedly setting up Trump to hang himself. (For example, by getting him to praise Qaddafi.) And on Tuesday, that strategy of letting Rubio crawl through the mud paid off.
At this point, calls for Rubio or Cruz to drop in favor of the other are mostly coming from those who favor one candidate or the other. I consider them premature. But if Rubio can’t win any primaries (especially the one in Florida) it seems unlikely that he could win the general election.
A Cruz primary victory means he would be running against Hillary Clinton in the fall. There was a reason we had 17 candidates at one point: even George Pataki smelled blood in the water. Hillary Clinton is a wounded candidate. She’s wounded by her record, the primary fight, Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation, her husband’s scandals, the FBI investigation, and she’s dragged down by the same anti-dynastic sentiment that doomed Jeb Bush.
The conventional wisdom says that Cruz cannot possibly win. For an arch-conservative Senator from Texas, that might be true in a typical year. But I think we can all agree that this ain’t a typical year.
Published in Politics
Outside of James of England lying about Cruz, sensationalizing every criticism with the blessing of the Ricochet leadership, and fabricating baseless conspiracy theory, again with the blessing of Ricochet’s editors, about Cruz’s pending impeachment, no, I’ve not read anyone saying that in #1.
I was definitely being satirical with #2. I thought Graham’s comments about Cruz getting murdered in the Senate were mildly funny, but some did take offense. I just figure that the fact that Cruz is still running and Graham is not is its own justice.
I’ve said that any of the Republican candidates can beat Hillary. She is a critically flawed candidate. Only the Republicans can beat themselves, and I suspect that Trump has damaged himself to give Hillary a shot. I don’t know if it’s enough damage for Hillary to win, but given all the “Never Trump” Republicans, it’s probably a Hillary win.
Cruz can beat Hillary, but I don’t see how he governs with the animosity inside the Republican Congress toward him. He also doesn’t sell well to the general public. He might beat Hillary but I don’t think we hold future Congresses with him as President, and I wouldn’t say he would be a sure thing on re-election.
“Graham: GOP may have to rally around Ted Cruz“
Florida and Ohio for sure, VA, maybe.
It’s basically just emphasis. Oleaginous sounds more oily than oily.
OED oleaginous (2nd meaning):
Exaggeratedly and distastefully complimentary; obsequious: ‘candidates made the usual oleaginous speeches in the debate’
Oily (2nd meaning):
(Of a person or their behavior) unpleasantly smooth and ingratiating: ‘his oily smile’
Fred Cole: Assuming everything you say about Cruz is accurate, he is still unelectable. The reason, from my perspective, is simple: He’s too religious for the American electorate. The country doesn’t like a candidate they perceive as a holy roller. Has it ever? Maybe, but not for the last many years. Carter, yeah, but not anyone else. And he was a Democrat so they looked the other way. Not any more, especially a Republican candidate who’s proud of his faith.
I eschew Twitter. I would never vote for Cruz. He gives me the willies.
But it’s not relevant. I am completely convinced that, absent an indictment, Hillary beats both Cruz and Rubio in today’s environment. Trump has made any conservative who has been elected to office previously not viable in 2016. I get angry thinking about it, but it’s just so obvious to me now that I can no longer hope against all reason for a conservative outcome.
I have considered this as well. Given, IMO, that a significant portion of his support is motivated by anger at incumbent politicians feckless conduct can any of them merit serious consideration in a post Trump political world.
Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and to a lesser degree Mike Lee, and Jeff Sessions are generally thought of as outsiders, the antidote to incumbent Republican failings, etc. Can they oppose Trump with any credibility. Is there a certain portion of his supporters that will always oppose anyone in office during 2016.
In all these threads about electability I have yet to see an actual argument made as to why Rubio is more electable than Cruz. Just a lot of assumptions concerning physical attributes and the way one talks.
It’s great that one may think that Rubio elocutes better than Ted, but Rubio has not proved himself capable of moving that speech into votes.
“But if Rubio can’t win any primaries (especially the one in Florida) it seems unlikely that he could win the general election.”
That assumes that the people not voting for him in the primaries also won’t vote for him in the general, and I think that’s a flawed premise.
First, many of the people not voting for him in the primaries (e.g. Democrat crossovers trying to wreak havoc) are not going to vote for the GOP candidate in November no matter who it is. It’s not a Marco thing.
Second, many of the people who didn’t or who won’t vote for him in the primaries did so/are doing so because the field is/was big enough that everyone could find their ideal candidate.
An anecdote is not a statistic, but I voted for Carly in New Hampshire (read: I didn’t vote for Marco). But I’d vote for him in the general. I suspect this year’s GOP race – specifically, the number of candidates – can easily explain why Rubio could win zero primaries and yet have a very good chance of winning the general.
How did that get 13 “Likes” in…Ricochet??
John Kasich is Mitt McDole redux. When will the Right retire the notion that a GOP moderate Democrat-lite POTUS candidate can outdo the genuine Democrat in the general election??
@Mike Silver:
Sorry, man. I just have to disagree with that.
First of all, I have doubts that Cruz will keep up the holy roller bit for the general. Not to say that he’ll reject it, more that he’ll downplay it for the wider audience. (The classic strategy of run right for the primary, run to the center for the general.)
Second, the problem with a “holy roller” is that they’re a scold. And I can’t think of a bigger scold than Hillary Clinton.
Third, religiosity is required for higher office in the United States. Interesting how every candidate talks about their faith, regularly attends church, and holds
Prayer meetings all the time. I’m not saying that it’s not genuine in a lot of cases, but for candidates *everybody* does it because it’s a political necessity.
Kasich apparently polls very well head to head with Clinton.
I’m pretty sure everyone “liked” everything but that sentence, since that wasn’t the point.
I tend to think of the God-bothering as mostly a misguided play for southern and midwestern Evangelical votes. Not that Cruz isn’t personally observant, but according to reporters who have been following him since Texas (this one since 2009),
So, I think Cruz could knock it off with the God-bothering, too. For one thing, it’s not even clear it attracts, rather than annoys, that vast swath of self-identified Evangelical voters who are also unchurched.
But I’m not worried about the excessive God-bothering being something Cruz can’t turn off. It seems like a relatively new thing for him, and hopefully it shouldn’t be hard for him to revert to his old ways. The only thing I wonder, maybe, is why he hasn’t toned it down sooner, in light of Trump’s highly irreligious appeal to Evangelical voters.
Alienating some parts of Washington- particularly the administrative state and even a few Senators- may be OK if you can still assemble a coalition to pass legislative enablement for the right principles. The problem is, when we see Ryan and McConnell vilified without a positive plan to make things better, we know right away that the person is not serious and definitely not knowledgeable about what it takes to get something we like accomplished. Speeches about the Ex-Im Bank as the definitive litmus test are moronic grandstanding plays driven by ego.
Keep your eye upon the doughnut and not on the hole. Mike Lee is as straightforward a small government conservative as you will find. So are Cotton and Sasse. They are not hated- Cruz is. There is a meaningful difference in how they operate to achieve goals.
As I have said before- when 200 Swift Boat people hate you and 3 think you are OK, it might be a good idea to understand that situation. The same goes for 99 senators.
I’m not sure I’d put Cotton in the same category as Sasse, Lee, Cruz, and Paul.
Cotton is more “moderate” on spending and foreign affairs the others.
I care less about electablalty and more about governance either one can beat Hillary. Who would be more effective at working with congress to shove the boulder rightway up the hill? I think Cruz is more trustworthy on Judical nominations but I think Rubio could actually get a lot better cooperation from a Republican controlled congress yes with that word everyone hates but democracy does not work unless you have it “compromise”. However I think Cruz would be a lot more veto crazy with a mixed legislative branch especially on budget deals. With Cruz I think the budget would be a lot less with a lot of veto overrides to stop government shut downs. Both would get ride of Obamacare in a heart beat unlike Trump. Hopefully they would be pass legislation that exempted all military and DOD officials from pay stops with a government shut down and did not give any federal employees on leave in a shut down back pay for not working.
Tangentially, was the original headline “Let’s dispel with the fiction that Ted Cruz is unelectable”? Because that would make me happy.
Nationally? Or state-by-state?
And those polls are, of course, long before the media’s 3-month-long no-holds-barred pull-out-all-the-stops campaign to scuttle him and to rescue her.
We’ve seen actual polls every fourth November, when a Dem-Lite goes up against a Dem. It’s never turned out well.
It’s a double-edged sword – she has far more serious trouble lurking in her own closets.
That the media will sit on
Oh rats, at first I thought you meant the media would sit on a double-edged sword.
It worked for W. in 2000 when he ran as a “compassionate conservative.” Medicare Part D and No Child Left Behind were fulfillment of his campaign promises.
Romney/Ryan ran on a much more conservative platform in 2012. W. promised to expand entitlements and won, while Romney pledged to reform entitlements and repeal Obamacare — and lost.
Viscosity
No, that’s a trait of all liquids. Different oils have different viscosities, for instance. It’s best understood as the density of a fluid. I don’t think it really applies to political traits. ;)