Jeff Mobley brings to our attention this interesting piece in National Review, “Ten Reasons Moderates Should Vote for Ted Cruz.” It’s by a guy named Dan McLaughlin.
Jeff makes these observations:
From reason nine of Ten Reasons Moderates Should Vote for Ted Cruz:
“Ted Cruz loves the Constitution like a fat kid loves cake, like a dog loves a tennis ball, like Donald Trump loves the sound of his own name.”
Reasons four and six were somewhat interesting. I hadn’t really thought about reason six before.
And it is an interesting piece, which raises some points many of us may not have thought about. In the end, though, for me, it fails to persuade. That’s because the list assumes, since you’re reading National Review, that you are a Republican and think like one. It’s not aimed at independents who just want the best (or least bad) candidate to win, regardless of party.
Here are the 10 reasons:
- One: This Election Is Too Important to Punt.
- Two: Only Ted Cruz Can Stop Donald Trump.
McLaughlin
- Three: Ted Cruz Might Beat Hillary Clinton; Donald Trump Won’t.
- Four: Ted Cruz Knows What He’s Doing.
- Five: The Republican Party Can Survive Losing with Ted Cruz.
- Six: Ted Cruz Won’t Rest until He Gets His Shot.
- Seven: You Can Live with Ted Cruz and His Supporters.
- Eight: Ted Cruz Might Be the Man to Tame Trumpism.
- Nine: Ted Cruz Loves the Constitution.
- Ten: President Cruz Would Be More Responsible Than You Think.
Before you consider my objections to some of them, go read the explanations. Some of them are pretty good.
And here are my objections, based on my UnParty perspective:
- One: All elections are too important to punt, but this one is no more so than others. This assertion is based in the Republican assumption that “Twelve years of Democratic control of the White House, with its expansive powers and massive cultural footprint, is intolerable.” No, it isn’t. It’s no worse than 12 years of GOP control.
- Two: You know I disagree with the thinking here, but we’ve been over that again and again…
- Three: Again, defeating Hillary Clinton is only a desired thing if the one defeating her would make a better president. Hillary is a mess, and with all her baggage is not someone that a reasonable, objective, nonpartisan person would actually want to become president. But she’s far more likely to govern from a pragmatic center, relatively free of unbending ideology, than Cruz. The Republicans only have one candidate left who would be a better deal as president, and that’s Kasich.
- Five: I don’t care about the Republican Party surviving, not if it thinks its only choices are Trump and Cruz.
- Seven: Basically, the argument here is We Republicans are used to dealing with people like Cruz supporters, so it won’t be so painful. Speak for yourselves, GOP.
- Eight: The argument here is that Trump and Cruz have enough in common that Cruz could take Trumpism and channel it for good. The trouble is, their areas of agreement are some of the worst things about both of them. Dealbreaker after dealbreaker, ladies.
- Nine: Yes, he does love the Constitution, and at least knows a lot about it, which distinguishes him sharply from Trump. I love the Constitution, too. But I noticed something a number of years back: Political candidates who go on and on and on and on about the Constitution quite frequently have some eccentric ideas about that same document. They see unconstitutionality everywhere they look. But folks, most political disagreement isn’t between the constitutional and the unconstitutional; it’s between options that represent different ways to go within the framework of constitutionality.
- Ten: Yeah… tell me another one.
Anyway, as you can see from all that typing I just did, at least the piece made me think. Maybe it will do the same for you…
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I’m glad you found it interesting, Brad.
I would quibble with you on point Eight. I think what McLaughlin is saying here is that, to the extent that any of the gripes of Trump’s fans are legitimate (I know you and I diverge on this), Cruz might actually be able to advance sound policies to address those gripes and thereby “Tame Trumpism”.
Aside from that, your comments on point Nine just convince me even more that you’ll really enjoy that Ben Sasse video.
Maybe.
Probably.
(It is pretty long, though).
It made me think – that Cruz is probably the only candidate still in the Presidential race who was regularly pummeled in schoolyard fights. There isn’t much else that makes sense with regard to his particularly repugnant personality traits.
It’s like he learned all the wrong lessons growing up; has drawn all the wrong conclusions about, well, everything. Even standing up for his wife against Trump he made sound spine-shudderingly awful.
And yet with all those wrong lessons he is within shouting distance of the Presidency of the United States. How could that possibly happen? I don’t agree with him but it’s difficult to look at his resume and say he’s failed in some way. He developed a certain world view and had the ambition and drive and intelligence to achieve all sorts of things you and I and 99.9% of the population could not.
Oh, absolutely. I’d love to have his energy. Except I would use it for good…
In my defense, I’ll note that his thing is being doctrinaire. If you’re willing to embrace a group’s worldview whole, without reservation, you can get a following.
If you approach things more eclectically, agreeing with this group on one thing and that group on another and nobody with the next thing, it’s harder to get a lot of people to vote for you. That’s my problem, or one of my problems…
I’m not worried about the Republican party surviving; I’m worried about the country surviving. Trump is incompetent, but there are work-arounds and support to ameliorate that. Cruz is smart and determined, and that’s what’s scary about a person willing to carpet bomb.
Amen.
I don’t have time for all that, because I’m trying to figure out why I should vote for Margaret Fischer “Our Hard Working Republican Coroner” for Lexington County Coroner. What does she do different than a Democrat candidate for County Coroner… does she pronounce people dead differently?
Exactly.
We shouldn’t be electing coroners at all, much less electing them in partisan elections.
A Republican coroner probably pronounces you dead because you didn’t have enough rugged individualism to stay alive.
A Democratic coroner pronounces you dead, and then makes sure you keep voting Democratic.
🙂
Bryan wins today’s gold star!
Very curiously, Brad, you certainly have as well!
So Trump crossed the 50% line in all 5 states today. Is there just mass stupidity across the country or are the party insiders and editorial boards just too far removed from the general public to understand people are fed up with the political system?
80/20 rule.
80% of the electorate is if fact, stupid. No not really; most of them are just low information voters.
But there it is. That’s what we face – every day.
The same ones who voted for Obama and Bush.
I voted for Obama AND Bush.
Kasich still in 4th place in delegates with 10 states left. 6 of those are winner take all (IN,NE,WV,MT,NJ,SD) where he will not get a single delegate. The other 4 states (OR,WA,CA,NM) are proportional and he is very unlikely to get enough delegates there to pass Rubio.
There is no way the 4th leading delegate count will get him the nomination. He’s been rejected by 2/3 or more of his own party across the country. He should quit now.
Re #3: Though Cruz is certainly not Romney or McCain, he “fits” enough of the GOP template in a general election for it to seem plausible that he might hang onto the same states that went red last time, but then one is hard-pressed to imagine any 2012 blue states that he might flip red.
If Trump is nominated, he may be more likely than Cruz to really tank in terms of the electoral college, but then again (as Doug as pointed out here) Trump is an unusual-enough GOP standard-bearer that he might shake up the map a little bit, i.e., contend in some rust-belt states where Cruz would not. So I’m not sure that Cruz has more chance to beat Clinton than Trump does. Truth is, I don’t think either one really has a chance, barring some late-breaking scandal (always a possibility) bringing Hillary down.
270towin.com is a fun interactive website if you enjoy playing around with the hypotheticals in the Electoral College race.
Trump is a deal maker. If he gets the nomination, I can see him trying anything to get crossover votes. He can easily move on abortion, Hilary can’t. He can talk about creating actual jobs, thousands of them. Hillary can’t. He can move on all sorts of issues since he won’t be tied to the Republican platform. Gun control, Obamacare, whatever. His power will come from not being beholden to anyone.
Plus he will be relentless in tearing down Hillary and Bill (he’ll be in play all summer long). She’s never faced a one on one battle against a real rival. Look how quickly Trump dispatched the Cruz-Kasich collusion news. They ended up looking weak and foolish within 12 hours. She’s going to have to face him one on one in debates at least 3 times. Who do you think is more worried about that – Trump or Hillary?
I don’t want Trump or Hillary but the same people who thought that #NEVERTRUMP would take him down are now looking pretty dumb.
Only a certain portion of the electorate is susceptible to anything Trump has to say. That portion is enough to win GOP primaries, but not enough to win the general election.
But… anything can happen. If we knew for sure that Hillary would beat him, then I wouldn’t care whether he gets the nomination. But for the same reasons I’m not crazy about having her as our least-bad option, she is fully capable of blowing her chance. If she does so, then she deserves to lose. But the country does NOT deserve Donald Trump in the White House. Neither does the rest of the world.
That’s why every possible effort must be made to stop him at every step of the way.
“[E]very possible effort” includes pulling for Cruz in Indiana.
Yes, even that, if Kasich can’t win there… If there was any chance he COULD, then I’d say the hell with cooperating with Cruz…
Well, It looks like Cruz might be throwing the Hail Mary here. It may pay off, or it may not. Either way, I don’t blame him.
Well, it doesn’t make ME like him any better. Or any worse…
I don’t think it can really hurt him. And it just might help get some fence-sitting politicians and/or donors in his corner. At a minimum, it should provide a brief distraction in the media from the story of Trump’s momentum. That in itself could do a lot for the Cruz campaign’s chances in Indiana. The main thing is getting people to envision the possibility that a Republican ticket with Cruz as the nominee might just be able to win the general.
Beyond that, it’s a solid choice in its own right (in my opinion).
FYI, I just did a separate post on it…