Althouse: "The Pundits Have It All Wrong. Ted Cruz Is a Real Threat For the Nomination."

November 12, 2015

"The Pundits Have It All Wrong. Ted Cruz Is a Real Threat For the Nomination."

Says Rich Lowry. I was just thinking that myself.

61 comments:

mccullough said...: Not a chance. He's just not good looking. He's too young to be this ugly.; 11/12/15, 3:58 PM
JackWayne said...: Even Lowry, who is a "conservative" can't stay away from the word "threat". The Beltway Ruling Class absolutely does not like Cruz. Which is why he will get my enthusiastic vote if he's the nominee.; 11/12/15, 4:15 PM
damikesc said...: I'd love Cruz to win the nomination.; 11/12/15, 4:15 PM
Sebastian said...: It helps to have ideas, skills, and brains. Oh, and money.

The mere thought of Cruz going up against Hillary in an actual debate is a pleasure.

Alas, he is a real threat for the nomination and therefore for a GOP loss in November.

He can help the GOP most as Rubio's VP: mobilize the base, use his debating skills to maximum effect, protect Rubio's right flank and enable him to move to the middle--and increase the GOP chances of winning. And the first majority-minority ticket can help offset the first-woman effect.; 11/12/15, 4:16 PM
Grackle said...: Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha!

FG; 11/12/15, 4:20 PM
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...: "threat"?

Where's my Safe Place? That's a hurtful word. Mommy!!; 11/12/15, 4:23 PM
The Godfather said...: I like Cruz, although I agree with McCulloch that his looks are a negative (I don't agree that he's "ugly"). But let's be honest about the media. The MSM have been giving far more attention to Trump than to any other candidate because they are sure he'd lose in the general election to Hillary! (I watch Good Morning America with my wife most mornings, and Trump gets almost as much coverage as the latest loser on Dancing With The Stars and the newest Disney movie.) The MSM were somewhat reluctant to give similar coverage to Carson, but now that they've figured out a narrative under which he's a religious nut, a liar, and pathologically violent, they're starting to give him some air.

The MSM have to pay some attention to Rubio, because he's moving up in the polls, but Marco is filling the Latino slot; what's the narrative about Cruz other than that he's a Tea Party extremist from Texas, so who cares? Believe me, if Cruz really screws up, the MSM will cover it.; 11/12/15, 4:30 PM
BJK said...: Ted Cruz is polarizing within the Republican party because he shows no capacity for compromise. He can be the candidate who wins a conservative purity test in the State of Texas (or who carries the right wing in a Republican primary), but could never be elected in a purple state like Wisconsin, Florida, or Ohio....which makes it very hard to imagine him being able to win one of those states 12 months from now.

Plus, to win what is literally a popularity contest, doesn't someone have to like you?; 11/12/15, 4:36 PM
Etienne said...: I'd vote for Cruz, only if he was born in America. It doesn't count if your mother emigrated to another country.

I can see being born in another country on a travel visa, but if his parents had a permanent residency, all bets are off.

I Figure his dad went there to escape the draft.; 11/12/15, 4:40 PM
M Jordan said...: It's going to come down to Trump vs. Cruz. There will be no establishment candidate, just outsider vs. a little less outsider.

Advantage Cruz on brains, advantage Trump on real-world experience. It'll be quite interesting to see which wins.; 11/12/15, 4:40 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: "Plus, to win what is literally a popularity contest, doesn't someone have to like you"

No, you just have to out-general the opposition. How many prom queens were the least-liked person in their schools?; 11/12/15, 4:42 PM
Jason said...: Conservative turnout for Cruz would be YYYUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGE!; 11/12/15, 4:47 PM
traditionalguy said...: Cruz is a good debater for a real debate. The stuff they call debates lately is like WWF faked wrestling compared to real Collegiate Wrestling.

Trump will have to use the natural born qualification against him. Where is the ace commenter on that issue?; 11/12/15, 4:49 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Cruz is absolutely a viable candidate, and is (or should be) the favored choice of Conservatives.

I'm leaning Rubio, with Cruz a strong 2nd - for purely tactical reasons. BJK above correctly notes that the election will come down to Florida, Ohio -- maybe Virginia, which are purple states. My soft tentative is that Rubio has a better shot at winning these states, because he's better at soft-peddling some of the controversial issues.

But, if Cruz wins the nomination, I would gladly, proudly vote for and support him against the aging ex-hippie chick, Hillary.; 11/12/15, 4:52 PM
bleh said...: Is Cruz eligible?; 11/12/15, 4:59 PM
furious_a said...: According to Chrissy Tinglelegs, Cruz isn't Hispanic enough.; 11/12/15, 5:04 PM
damikesc said...: Plus, to win what is literally a popularity contest, doesn't someone have to like you?

He'd be facing Hillary. Who LIKES her?; 11/12/15, 5:10 PM
readering said...: When is Trump going to start going after Cruz about being born in Canada to a Cuban dad and an American mom rumored to have been looking to become Canadian?; 11/12/15, 5:19 PM
Qwinn said...: Anyone could beat Hillary. There may never be another opportunity to have such a loathsome unlikable opponent in the general, and therefore no better time to nominate a real conservative. Cruz 2016!; 11/12/15, 5:19 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: What does the name 'cruz' mean in English?
Cross.
What is front and center at every KKK meeting?
A cross.
Hillary's researchers will send this info along to their pals in the media, and soon Cruz will not be able to appear on TV without a reporter asking him how may KKK meetings he has attended.; 11/12/15, 5:22 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: Natural born Canadian; 11/12/15, 5:25 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: The betting wags put Cruz at 7 to 1, behind Bush at 6 to 1, Trump at 3 to 1, and Rubio the favorite at 5 to 4. Carson only slightly trails Cruz at 15 to 2. The rest are long shots.; 11/12/15, 5:47 PM
Francisco D said...: I am a pro-choice, pro gay rights libertarian conservative. (although I find the activists extremely annoying). The last Democrat I voted for was Jimmy Carter in 1980. I learned my lesson. I am looking for another Ronald Reagan.

Ted Cruz comes closest.

To the "natural born" crowd, please point to relevant parts of the Constitution and SCOTUS rulings that support your position.; 11/12/15, 5:51 PM
MacMacConnell said...: Cruz has the $ and a ground game. Wait till the SEC primaries. It's still early.

I support him, would love to see a Cruz/Carly ticket and win. He could go about being pres and turn her ape ship loose on the bureaucracy.; 11/12/15, 5:56 PM
Siduri said...: Remember when we had that strange conversation about bad dreams with Donald Trump in them? The ones we wanted to forget?

Yesterday, I realized that I am madly in love with Ted Cruz. It just hit me like a brick after the last debate. Yikes.; 11/12/15, 5:57 PM
dreams said...: I like Cruz the best.; 11/12/15, 6:09 PM
David Begley said...: I have personally seen Ted twice in person. See my posts at the Power Line blog.

He is very impressive.; 11/12/15, 6:44 PM
Brando said...: I could see him getting the nomination but I can't imagine him winning the general election. To win, they need votes outside the GOP comfort zone.; 11/12/15, 6:45 PM
Hagar said...: The Republicn nominee will be running against Hillary! or ???; 11/12/15, 6:53 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Cruz is too square to be president.; 11/12/15, 6:59 PM
Theranter said...: Would love to see Cruz debate Hillary. She'd wet her depends and melt her wig, and end up just screaming "I'm a women, I'm a woman!"
However, entertainment factor aside, another D (or God forbid HRC) will send us further down this hellhole we are in.
And Cruz cannot win the general. It just won't happen. (Not even as VP)
Trump can. Like it or not, he's our only shot at winning.; 11/12/15, 7:02 PM
Qwinn said...: Here's the way I look at it. Anything less than a VERY conservative president that is willing to quickly undo a lot of the Left's policies will accomplish nothing except getting the blame for Obama's failures. That is the only thing "compromise" will do. If this election gets us a squish like McCain or Romney that will, at best, stop things from getting worse but won't fix a thing and will get conservatives blamed for everything, might as well let Hillary win. But I doubt anyone could lose against her, save for voter fraud.; 11/12/15, 7:10 PM
Michael K said...: :Cruz has the $ and a ground game. Wait till the SEC primaries. It's still early."

I agree. He is going at this in a very professional way. I like Carson a lot but Cruz looks the best bet right now. I am still worried about one term Senators.; 11/12/15, 7:14 PM
MacMacConnell said...: Cruz wasn't community organising between Harvard Law and the Senate.; 11/12/15, 7:24 PM
MacMacConnell said...: The only way Republicans win the White House is by pretending to be conservatives, with the exception of Reagan. Why not run a real one, this might be shaping up to be 1980.; 11/12/15, 7:29 PM
JackWayne said...: BJK - would you describe the Founding Fathers as compromisers? Should they have found a way to get along with George III? Or were they polarizers? This idea that a candidate must be soft is way off the mark. Do you think Obama is soft? Or is he a doctrinaire who sticks to his beliefs? I urge you to stop giving in to the other side. If you're gonna go down, go down swinging instead of genuflecting to the moderates. We are drowning because the moderates always vote to compromise. They are betas voting for the strong horse. Obama was clearly stronger than McCain or Romney.; 11/12/15, 7:33 PM
George said...: Still think odds on guy is Rubio.; 11/12/15, 7:36 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: He's no threat.

He just thinks the whole world's on fire, and wants to make that "even better."; 11/12/15, 7:57 PM
Brando said...: Rubio I think is Hillarys worst nightmare--able to compete hard for Hispanic votes, and solid speaker and debater--he can also contrast with her tired, weak style of campaign. If he somehow pulls it off, we will have a real race.; 11/12/15, 8:20 PM
Limited blogger said...: Right now it is either Trump or Cruz.

The others will compromise us into oblivion.; 11/12/15, 8:25 PM
Birkel said...: Leviathan must be fought.
Which candidate(s) can do that?; 11/12/15, 8:35 PM
Qwinn said...: By the way, BJK....

You're proposing that all those purple states could never consider voting for Cruz, but they'd be perfectly okay with Hillary? What makes them purple then?

But... really... thanks for your concern.; 11/12/15, 8:50 PM
MathMom said...: Hillary will choose one of the Castro twins to be her running mate, mark my words. Either one will do...they learned radicalism at their mother's knee.; 11/12/15, 9:08 PM
Eleanor said...: I'm a middle of the road independent voter, and I'd vote for Ted Cruz over Rubio anyday. If it was Hillary vs. Rubio, I'd probably vote for her, which is something I'd rather not do. Rubio is the Republican version of Obama. He lacks the necessary maturity, doesn't have much of a work ethic, and sticks his finger in the air to test the wind direction. Hillary is dishonest, but at least I know what her priorities are. Anything that feathers her own nest. That I can at least predict with some accuracy.; 11/12/15, 9:18 PM
Big Mike said...: @Althouse, since neither you, nor Lowry, nor the pundits in their DC-NY cocoons, really understand Republicans, just go with the flow.; 11/12/15, 9:34 PM
mtrobertslaw said...: Put a brightly checked sport coat on Rubio and he sell a million used cars in two weeks.; 11/12/15, 9:39 PM
Big Mike said...: @Althouse, better yet, read Noonan's latest article.; 11/12/15, 9:51 PM
Wince said...: If nothing else, Cruz is moving the center of gravity to the right very effectively.; 11/12/15, 10:35 PM
Achilles said...: All of the remaining credible candidates are campaigning against cronyism and have proposed flat tax codes. The question is whether or not they would follow through. Rubio will not. He will fall in li e in DC line he did trying to pass amnesty. The other 4 look to have some integrity.; 11/12/15, 10:56 PM
chickelit said...: Cruz will falter to a T.; 11/12/15, 11:14 PM
cubanbob said...: The FBI is starting to sniff around Hillary a lot. If FBI finds enough to have the DoJ charge her (even if the DoJ doesn't for political reasons someone at the FBI will leak-the bureau has a longer term view of its image than saving Obama's reputation at this point) then all bets are off. It's not for nothing Biden's going away speech too much like a campaign speech.; 11/12/15, 11:22 PM
Diamondhead said...: The Republicans could nominate Kasich and the Democrats and the media would tell everyone he was a scary right-winger. Might as well have the real thing.; 11/13/15, 12:15 AM
MacMacConnell said...: Diamondhead
Exactly! Hell the media portrayed Bob Dole as a scary right-winger.; 11/13/15, 12:45 AM
holdfast said...: The Republicans could nominate Kasich and the Democrats and the media would tell everyone he was a scary right-winger. Might as well have the real thing.

Dams straight.

I worry about Cruz's electability in the general, but fukkit - he's smart, capable and a real conservative. Let's swing for the fence.; 11/13/15, 12:49 AM
Etienne said...: I think the USA will be under martial law by mid-2016 after ISIS attacks Washington, and blows the fucking place up, and everyone goes into their assigned mine-shafts.

General Ron Lewis will be in charge. oops, hold off on that...; 11/13/15, 5:43 AM
Etienne said...: Cruz is a tea party Republican. He has no chance. Those guys are all hated by the team owners.; 11/13/15, 5:54 AM
Rusty said...: Fortunately, Coupe, the ballot box is here we can bypass the wishes of the team owners.; 11/13/15, 7:17 AM
Anonymous said...: Mac McConnell:

...turn her ape ship loose on the bureaucracy.

Awesome typo. Love the image.; 11/13/15, 7:27 AM
Mick said...: "To the "natural born" crowd, please point to relevant parts of the Constitution and SCOTUS rulings that support your position".

Yeah, well you can't love parts of the Constitution and not others. Cruz is a fraud, and knows he is not eligible. He is helping Obama cement his legacy of destruction. The purpose of the natural born citizen requirement is prevention of foreign influence, so it is impossible to think that the set of eligible persons includes those born in a foreign country or of foreign parentage. Cruz was born BOTH, in a foreign country, and of a foreign father.

“The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.” And see Wong Kim Ark, 169 US 649, 680 (1898), quoting the “common law” definition in Minor.

And also,
"“Vattel, who, though not very full to this point, is more explicit and more satisfactory on it than any other whose work has fallen into my hands, says ‘The citizens are the members of
the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.’” The Venus, 12 U.S. 253, 289 (1814)(Marshall concurrence)

Cruz was naturalized by 8 US Code 1401(g). Before 1922 (Cable Act) he would not have even been considered a US Citizen, and is only considered that now due to the power of Congress to enact uniform naturalization and immigration law.

The Constitution itself can naturalize, just as the first naturalization statute did in the Organic Constitution ("or a citizen at the time of the ratification of this Constitution"). Afroyim v. Rusk held that the 14th Amendment "Confers citizenship"--- that is, it naturalizes.
Anyone who is a US citizen but not born in the US of US Citizen parents is naturalized in some way, either by oath or statute.

“The Court first held that within the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment, Wong Kim Ark was a citizen of the United States, and then pointed out that though he might "renounce this citizenship, and become a citizen of . . . any other country," he had never done so. [Wong Kim Ark] at 704-705. The Court then held that Congress could not do anything to abridge or affect his citizenship conferred by the Fourteenth Amendment. Quoting Chief Justice Marshall's well-considered and oft-repeated dictum in Osborn to the effect that Congress under the power of naturalization has "a power to confer citizenship, not a power to take it away," - Afroyim v. Rusk, (387 U.S. 253, 266)

Wong Kim Ark was "conferred citizenship" by the 14th Amendment, as were Rubio, Jindal and Cruz, since they were born "subject to the jurisdiction of the US." Naturalization was defined by INS 1952(23) as "to confer nationality by any means whatsoever," and the Rusk case used the same terminology in describing the condition of WKA, i.e "conferred citizenship" and "granted citizenship". Natural born citizens are not "granted or conferred" citizenship. They are citizens by tacit acceptance-- they are born to US citizens on US soil-- what else would they be. With all others there is split allegiance and doubt, so their citizenship must be conferred. Pretty simple and logical really.; 11/13/15, 8:47 AM
BN said...: "I'd vote for Cruz, only if he was born in America."

Lol. Like we still have a constitution.

Lol again.; 11/14/15, 12:55 AM
BN said...: That said, I'm voting for Cruz at least 4 or 5 times.; 11/14/15, 12:56 AM