[Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, a Washington-based group that helps finance conservative anti-establishment candidates] said Cruz’s win is the biggest this year for tea party activists, calling it “an 11 and Indiana a 10” on the scale of importance. The reason, according to Kibbe and other tea party leaders, is because of the sheer size of Texas.So now the Tea Party has it: A really big state and a really big brain. And Hispanic!
In the 2010 primaries, the movement fared best in smaller states without large media markets — places such as Delaware, where neophyte Christine O’Donnell used grass-roots support to sweep past a 30-year veteran of state GOP politics. Just 50,000 people voted in that primary. The tea party’s feat was repeated in other small-turnout states, such as Nevada and Alaska.
This year, tea party leaders sought mostly pure conservatives but also candidates with more political and professional experience, aiming to appeal to activists as well as independents in the general election. “You’re not going to see any Christine O’Donnell train wrecks,” Kibbe predicted, noting O’Donnell’s defeat by nearly 20 points in that fall’s election.
Cruz epitomized that effort. Unlike some of the anti-intellectual candidates of the tea party past, he boasted of his undergraduate degree from Princeton University, his national debating championship, his Harvard law degree and his Supreme Court clerkship.
“I think he’s got the pedigree, he’s got all of it,” [Rand] Paul said. “In fact, we’ve joked that he’s too smart for the Senate to fit in.”
ADDED: I think we'll see a lot more of the effort to distinguish Cubans from other Hispanics. That has already come up in the context of Marco Rubio.
Posts
37 comments:
Damn it tea party! You're supposed to be racist. This is really hurting The Narrative guys.
"The problem with Establishment Republicans is that they are more interested in remaining part of the establishment than they are being Republicans" - _______?
[i think it was Insty?]
This is really hurting The Narrative guys.
Cruz is a "White Hispanic" ... so we're still good
/s
Do the Dems have any minority senators besides Memendez from NJ?
Dems lose even a small fraction of their advantage with Hispanics and it's over, baby! Which means the Dem/MSM demonization of Cruz will go into overdrive as of...NOW.
AJ Lynch, there's Daniel Inouye, D-HI. I think that might be it.
Contributions by the left's beloved occupy protestors:
several rapes,
1 conspiracy to commit arson,
1 pile of shit on a police vehicle.
Contributions of the Tea Party:
Representatives, governors, and now senators weakening the stranglehold the corrupt political class has on America.
It's such a dificult evaluation, which to choose?
Thanks Michelle. Those two are not much different from having two white guys except they are both far left tax & spend libs.
Some much for the big Democratic juggernaught of the future.
But the Tea Party is losing influence!
Oh, and they are a bunch of dummies who don't know anything too!!!
"So now the Tea Party has it: A really big state and a really big brain. And Hispanic!"
Maybe.
Isn't that the same trap the idiots fell for with Obama?
"A really big state and a really big brain. And Black!"
I haven't followed that race, so what's his real world experience?
I hope, unlike Obama, it is something, anything, more substantial than "community organizer," hood ornament at a mid-grade Chicago law firm, adjunct faculty staff, "Present!" in the state legislature and immediate candidate for president once elected to a bigger job.
Chances are, it is; Texas Republican primary voters strike me as significantly more savvy than your average, run of the mill, swing Obama voter.
P.S.
Great example of shoddy reporting in the linked article. The Obama booster, oops I mean reporter, refers to the TP being divided in NJ, losing senate elections, etc as signs of weakness. These aren't signs of weakness. Not every election has a candidate who is good enough to merit unified support, and it's a sign of maturity the Tea Partiers recognize that and exercise independent judgement. It's a clear distinction from the leftist sheep (cough, leslyn, cough) who repeat leftist talking points without considering even the most obvious weaknesses. The entire article is an exercise in interpreting facts to fit your narrative no matter how many logical missteps you have to make to do so.
If you thought Wisconsin Crying Guy was hysterical wait till November.
He's not Hispanic. He's Cuban. Here we go.
Why heck - 13%? Up in Wisconsin that's a squeaker!
"Wisconsin Crying Guy". Heh- good one Marshal!
Actually the effort to separate Cubans from the rest of the Hispanic vote began long ago.
"Those Cubans, they think they are better, you know"
Stuff like that has been around for years. It's because when the two parties put up voter registration booths at the citizenship ceremonies the Cubans head for the Repub's booth, the other hispanics head for the Dems. Something to do with makers and takers.
Isn't Rubio a tea party guy? Didnt the tea party already have a really a win in a large state? I guess admitting the tea party has been effective doesnt fit the narrative.
For the Dems, ethnicity is sometimes a matter of birth and sometimes just a social construct. When it's the latter, the most important determinant is whether a person supports the lefty agenda. If you don't, then you can be an authentic [name your favorite ethnic minority]. So conservatives like Tom Sowell are just orioles, and on and on.
Dismissing Cubans as not-Hispanic is taking approach to the next logical level: a group that tends to reject the lefty agenda gets written off as inauthentic in the same way. (Koreans will be next on that hit list, I suspect.)
The same phenom happened with feminists, when Bubba couldn't control himself around Monica or Gennifer or .... When support for the agenda required support of Bubba's inexcusable conduct, it was obvious where all real feminists would line up.
It's all about power. Everything else is secondary (at best).
But he is a white Hispanic whose Conquistadors ancestors came to kill and pillage the "real" Hispanics in Cuba. He could even speak the language of the Conquistadors.
In America, we have ultra senses, no drops of Cherokee blood makes you a Native American icon, plenty drops of Hispanic bloods from the wrong color of Hispanics disqualify your claims to the minority group.
You'll hear a lot more about the white Hispanic colonialism and exploitations of the natives. The MSM will spill out "in-depth" studies that Mexicans are the real Latinos, Cubans, especially the white kind, are the exploitors of the real Latinos.
So conservatives like Tom Sowell are just orioles
I would guess Sowell is a Giants fan.
Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you Mister Jones.
"So conservatives like Tom Sowell are just orioles"
I think you mean Oreos, black on the outside, white in the middle.
I favored Cruz simply because he was NOT part of the Republican party establishment. The Republicans, or some successor party to them, will have to make a lot of citizens unhappy by rolling back the welfare state and federal over reach.
It won't be party insiders stepping up to be the "bad guys" starving the poor, firing teachers, police and firemen, and killing children while they are cutting the federal bloat.
Just two years ago the Texas MSM was claiming that Hispanics couldn't win a statewide Republican primary. I'm glad to see that myth die.
Prominently endorsed by Sarah Palin, too.
Funny how an endorsement by Choom or Willie is considered the Kiss Of Death.
I thought Shiloh assured us TX will be in play in 15 years?
Does anyone remember the talk show host Cristina? I read something about her a few years ago. When she got her show, there were calls that she shouldn't be host because she's Cuban. That gave me pause.
How naive thinking each race doesn't have a pecking order.
Only whites do. LOLOLOLOLOL
A tio thomaso?
When this campaign started I tended towards Dewhurst mainly on the strength of his Air Force and CIA background, which is a little bit similar to my own. Dewhurst is not a lawyer, which is always a plus with me, lawyers being over represented in elected offices at every level.
As near as I can tell Cruz and Dewhurst have virtually no areas of disagreement on policy.
By yesterday I was ready to puke every time I saw Dewhurst on TV or on web advertising. Which was a lot, since Dewhurst had much more money to spend than Cruz.
Dewhurst advertising consisted almost entirely of hysterical mud slinging and out right lies.
Dewhurst took a page right out of Obama's playbook and tried to paint Cruz as a 'job exporter' based on a lawsuit between two Chinese companies, one of which hired Cruz at some point in the litigation.
In the days before the election Dewhurst was accusing Cruz of selling children into slavery! Really! I kid you not!
These ads were insulting to anyone with a room temperature IQ, lots of distorted black and white pictures of Cruz, scare headlines, screaming announcers.
The Cruz victory shows that a positive message from an articulate candidate trumps money and scary TV ads.
Ann Althouse said...
I think we'll see a lot more of the effort to distinguish Cubans from other Hispanics.
It's all the Lefties will have left. The whole "Hispanic" thing is probably more for the Anglos than for those on the inside, cultures and traditions are different - Cubans tend to go Republican more because of Fidel.
But, then, there are people like Susana Martinez; Mexicans are in the fastest growing cohort economically.
Jim,
With Dewhurst's ads, the public finally got to see his truly "unlikable" side. Here in Austin, that side of Dewhurst is fairly legendary within the Capitol, according to my friends that work there.
I agree with you that, policy wise, they're the same. My hope with Cruz is that he's not so much of a personal SOB (unlike Dewhurst) that he can actually function socially in Washington--e.g.: he can not compromise, yet still be agreeable.
Alan, I'd heard that Dewhurst was kind of a jerk, and you're right, he sure came across that way in his ads.
Another plus for Cruz with me was that Cruz was a championship debater at Princeton.
The last thing we Republicans needed was another well meaning but tongue tied rancher at the national level.
@leslyn
Make no mistake, Tea Partiers while voting R, are despised by the heads of the R Party. The R heads are just as progressive as the D's, that's what the base(the Tea Party) is so mad about. We haven't had a 2 party system for decades now. At best it's been moderate leftist, and hardcore leftist.
Romney is a moderate leftist. That's why he does so poorly with the base. Why he could never top that 40% mark.
As I explained to Garage yesterday, it's the old joke about 2 guys and a bear. you don't have to out run the bear, just the other guy. The winner is of course the bear.
So even though we will probably never warm up to Mitt, we will be voting for him, 'cause Zero is a lot worse.
As an aside, Rand Paul was not the establishment pick either. Mitch "the Snitch" McConnel has a strangle hold on power here in Kentucky...with the establishment. We, the people, are a lot more pig-headed, and will vote for whom we want.(the fight between Rand and Mitchs pick, who I forget, was more rancorous than between Rand and the D) Much to the delight of the liberal press who thought the R's would be too bloodied up to win.
Ps
Keep an eye on Rand. He's very good at goring oxes, and I can see him as Pres. one day. He does it with a mild tone and a small smile on his face. Very effective. Very charismatic...Kinda "Ahh shucks" like Andy Griffen. Hides a very skilled mind.
"since Dewhurst had much more money to spend than Cruz"
Surely there is some mistake here: how is it that Dewhurst lost, then?
We know that liberals love Hispanics except the Cubans because they are anti communists.
Remember how the Cubans were treated during the Ellian Gonzalez affair. A shameful event in our history given his mother lost her life getting him to America in my opinion. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of you teaming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" I guess those words didn't apply to him.
"Keep an eye on Rand. He's very good at goring oxes, and I can see him as Pres. one day. He does it with a mild tone and a small smile on his face. Very effective. Very charismatic...Kinda "Ahh shucks" like Andy Griffen. Hides a very skilled mind."
He has an extremely attractive wife too.
The Eyes of Texas are now Tea Party eyes upon you, Mr GOP Senator compromisers.
What you gonna do when they come for you?
Post a Comment