[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
The question is: “What is his ultimate Goal”?
[/quote]
To be remembered like a Roosevelt?
I mean, outside of narcissism, why the hell else would anyone want arguably the shittest job in the world? Not only WANT the job, but raise a billion dollars to beg for it…
[/quote]
I agree, Beans!
Mufasa
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Those of you who are trumpeting the line, “Well, it’s obvious he can’t win so why is the numbskull even running and why do those who like him even bother boarding his campaign train,” are missing a key point: by being in the limelight his ideology, which in my opinion is spot-on, gets marketed on a national scale.
His ideology needs to be marketed. It’s a good one. “Consumers” need to be exposed to it. If so, many of them will buy it. If enough of them buy it the demand will increase.
Think.[/quote]
His ideology is fringe and based on historical revisionism and romance, but more importantly to your point - people are familiar with his ideology. Tea Party philosophy has been front and center since at least 2009 now, and really nothing Cruz is going to say in this campaign will be any different than anything that they haven’t heard going on 6 years now.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
His ideology is fringe and based on historical revisionism and romance, but more importantly to your point - people are familiar with his ideology. Tea Party philosophy has been front and center since at least 2009 now, and really nothing Cruz is going to say in this campaign will be any different than anything that they haven’t heard going on 6 years now.
[/quote]
No, the philosophy won’t be anything different to those that have been listening to the Tea Party message the last six years.
The difference is he will have more listeners.
IMO, the question today should be, “Will Rand run?” And if so, will two similar candidates strengthen or weaken the message?
[quote]pushharder wrote:
I’ve a hunch Harvard professors never said this about Barack:
More evidence that T-bolt’s contention that Cruz is a right-wing version of BHO is way off the mark.[/quote]
I don’t know that he is any iteration of Bam, but I do know people outside the bases are going to be weary of ideologues when they go to the polls in 2016. And people in the republican base thirsty for one.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Those of you who are trumpeting the line, “Well, it’s obvious he can’t win so why is the numbskull even running and why do those who like him even bother boarding his campaign train,” are missing a key point: by being in the limelight his ideology, which in my opinion is spot-on, gets marketed on a national scale.
His ideology needs to be marketed. It’s a good one. “Consumers” need to be exposed to it. If so, many of them will buy it. If enough of them buy it the demand will increase.
Think.[/quote]
His ideology is fringe
[/quote]
If it’s fringe it’s only because the leftist drift overall over the past 80 years has made it so.
Bullshit. Your saying this says more about your “the middle is so kewl” political philosophy than Cruz’s view of history and romance but we need not debate this here unless you’re really intent on doing so.
Not enough in my opinion.
Six years vs 80 is not comparable enough time periods to stem the tide of progressivism and statism. Sorry.
[/quote]
Whether he is fringe not is an observational issue - where does he sit relative to mainstream politics? Not very close. Hence, he is fringe. I don’t see his views becoming mainstream anytime soon.
Sure his views are based in historical revisionism. “Return to the Constitution” - what exactly does that mean? Doing what exactly? To what era? And adopting which parts? He seems to think there is some era to return to - well, which one? Which era had the “right size” government for a post-industrial, aging society who’s economy is globally integrated? He’s caught up in a revisionism and is trying to sell it.
It doesn’t matter what your opinion is about the merits of ideology - what matters is is it new? Fresh? Are people otherwise disinclined to vote for Cruz going to hear a pitch they’ve never heard before? No. People are full up on Tea Party philosophy. Some may warm up to it who didn’t like it before, but on the whole, voters know what they’re getting with Cruz.
Where there is opportunity is to talk about discrete issues in front of certain audiences that are biased to not like the idea, a la Rand Paul. But Cruz doesn’t seem to have that in him, and in any event, the broad, middle-based voting populace (of which I am referring) is already familiar with this brand of ideology.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
I’ve a hunch Harvard professors never said this about Barack:
More evidence that T-bolt’s contention that Cruz is a right-wing version of BHO is way off the mark.[/quote]
How does that invalidate the comparison? Cruz is very bright, as is Obama. So?
[quote]tedro wrote:
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
His ideology is fringe and based on historical revisionism and romance, but more importantly to your point - people are familiar with his ideology. Tea Party philosophy has been front and center since at least 2009 now, and really nothing Cruz is going to say in this campaign will be any different than anything that they haven’t heard going on 6 years now.
[/quote]
No, the philosophy won’t be anything different to those that have been listening to the Tea Party message the last six years.
The difference is he will have more listeners.
IMO, the question today should be, “Will Rand run?” And if so, will two similar candidates strengthen or weaken the message?
[/quote]
Are there more listeners for a “let’s pare back federal overreach” message? Yes. Are there more listeners for a “we need a government the size of the one we had in 1820 and let’s abolish a bunch of other stuff”? No.
Interesting analysis on Cruz’s chances:
“And the Cruz hatred doesnâ??t stop at the edges of the Senate cloakroom. Influential party actors dislike him, too. I canâ??t remember another Republican who unitedÃ? Ann Coulter,Ã? Pat Robertson,Jennifer RubinÃ? andÃ? Thomas SowellÃ? in opposition.”
Tough point. When you make fellow Senators mad with your judgment and selfish grandstanding for personal gain, and you start rankling right-wing tastemakers, along with the fact that according to this analysis, you are the most right-wing public person in recent history (by definition, “fringe”), it’s hard to think there is a viable path to nomination and election.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Interesting analysis on Cruz’s chances:
“And the Cruz hatred doesnÃ?¢??t stop at the edges of the Senate cloakroom. Influential party actors dislike him, too. I canÃ?¢??t remember another Republican who unitedÃ??Ã? Ann Coulter,Ã??Ã? Pat Robertson,Jennifer RubinÃ??Ã? andÃ??Ã? Thomas SowellÃ??Ã? in opposition.”
Tough point. When you make fellow Senators mad with your judgment and selfish grandstanding for personal gain, and you start rankling right-wing tastemakers, along with the fact that according to this analysis, you are the most right-wing public person in recent history (by definition, “fringe”), it’s hard to think there is a viable path to nomination and election.
[/quote]
Tinfoil or not, the lead in to that article makes me feel like this was all planned, and he’s in on it, and happy to play the role.
He comes out first, takes the brunt of the vitriol and spin. They play the “paint him like Palin” game so they can continue to call anyone else that is critical of a minority racist and sexist, but he’s “dumb like Palin, so I’m not racist or sexist when I say racist and sexist things, he isn’t as smart as me”.
By the time the other contenders (And wow at how well Rubio is polling in everything I’ve seen today, btw) ease their way in, the left is still in full on “Kill Cruz” mode…
If I gave the republicans this much credit, and thought Cruz would enjoy playing the role of “bad guy” I’d almost buy this.
I’m personally still waiting to see what Walker has to say.
(Maybe his “silence” is saying it all?)
What do you guys think?
Mufasa