Steve Sailer writes: With Ted Cruz apparently dropping out, I have to say that I think Cruz ran a relatively strong campaign from a technical standpoint. He’s not a natural leader of men, so for him to come in second out of almost a dozen and a half candidates shows a cunning and resourceful mind. Nixon would have been impressed. Cruz outlasted Scott Walker, Rick Perry, Jeb Bush, and Marco Rubio plus a whole bunch of people whom I’ve forgotten already.
Cruz early on in the campaign figured out that Donald Trump and the immigration issue were for real, so he did what he could to avoid running headlong into those intertwined juggernauts. Unfortunately for Cruz, Trump figured out fairly early that Cruz was his most formidable opponent and turned his fire on him.
COMMENTS:
* Now the political will get personal and will be about White women and whose side they’re on. Trump versus Hillary is going to be a massive Conversation on that.
* Don’t feel too sorry. In 1956 JFK tried and failed to get the Dems VP nomination. And he was just 7 years younger than Cruz will be in 2020 when he became President. Of course then Cruz’ Dad killed him but that’s another story.
* Cruz and Trump were cordial up to the point Cruz figured most of the heavy lifting was done and he could start playing hardball with Trump.
Yeah, Trump beat Cruz like he’s going to Hillary, but he didn’t do himself any favors running as a Dominionist, much like Hillary isn’t doing herself any favors running on “more violent foreigners and I’m taking your guns”.
If Cruz was the vaunted genius everyone thought, he would have united with Trump and spent 8 years as VP before running in 2024 as the heir to a successful President Trump. But no. He had to have it now.
* It felt as if his encounter with the Trump irregulars across the street was fatal. For average Cruz backers, not the Kool Aid politics-dweeb Twitaholic faction, that clip’s gotta hurt. And I sort of respect what he was quixotically going for there, but man, try to know the moment.
* It is strange how politics doesn’t seem to select for people of natural political ability in the same way that sports selects for people of natural athletic ability. It’s inconceivable that you could meet anyone who isn’t already a professional baseball player, and think “he could replace Mike Trout or Bryce Harper.” Yet I’ve met plenty of non-politicians who I thought would be more appealing presidential candidates than the current lot.
For example, Cruz is highly intelligent and strategically savvy…but isn’t there anyone else just as smart and savvy who also looks and sounds like a movie president?
Trump is “alpha” and very media savvy, but not obviously book smart in the same way that Cruz or Bobby Jindal are (and he’s been depantsed organizationally by Cruz, so his management skills are similarly questionable).
Hillary would never get anywhere near the presidency if “natural political ability” were as necessary to become president as “natural pitching ability” is to win the Cy Young award.
Rubio has a lot of natural political ability, but was mostly done in by his disastrous strategery (and he’s not any sort of intellectual). But it sure seems like in a nation of 300 million people, there ought to be someone of comparable looks/charisma to Rubio who isn’t pro-amnesty, and is just a little bit smarter.
Politics clearly selects for some quality other than the surface qualities of intelligence, looks, charisma, debating ability, etc. Perhaps cravenness, or dumb luck?
* He ran a bit of a copycat campaign. Unfortunately for him, he isn’t very likable. The more people got to know him, the more they didn’t like him. Trump is good at exploiting people’s personal flaws.
* In his defense, he did stand up to the trannies (can you even imagine having to argue this point in 1970, the year he was born?), and was apparently the only candidate in either party to call out the twisted women-in-combat trend.
There might have been a more nuanced way to deal with ethanol subsidies– like limiting them to farmers using ethanol and only ethanol in all their vehicles. But NYC and Chicago developers meet their match in corrupting influences in Iowa farmers.
