{"id":94676,"date":"2016-05-03T17:06:44","date_gmt":"2016-05-04T01:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=94676"},"modified":"2016-05-03T17:21:38","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T01:21:38","slug":"one-cheer-for-ted-cruz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=94676","title":{"rendered":"One Cheer For Ted Cruz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Sailer writes<\/a>: With Ted Cruz apparently dropping out, I have to say that I think Cruz ran a relatively strong campaign from a technical standpoint. He\u2019s 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\u2019ve forgotten already.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

COMMENTS:<\/p>\n

* Now the political will get personal and will be about White women and whose side they\u2019re on. Trump versus Hillary is going to be a massive Conversation on that.<\/p>\n

* Don\u2019t 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\u2019 Dad killed him but that\u2019s another story.<\/p>\n

* 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.<\/p>\n

Yeah, Trump beat Cruz like he\u2019s going to Hillary, but he didn\u2019t do himself any favors running as a Dominionist, much like Hillary isn\u2019t doing herself any favors running on \u201cmore violent foreigners and I\u2019m taking your guns\u201d.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

* 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\u2019s gotta hurt. And I sort of respect what he was quixotically going for there, but man, try to know the moment.<\/p>\n

* It is strange how politics doesn\u2019t seem to select for people of natural political ability in the same way that sports selects for people of natural athletic ability. It\u2019s inconceivable that you could meet anyone who isn\u2019t already a professional baseball player, and think \u201che could replace Mike Trout or Bryce Harper.\u201d Yet I\u2019ve met plenty of non-politicians who I thought would be more appealing presidential candidates than the current lot.<\/p>\n

For example, Cruz is highly intelligent and strategically savvy\u2026but isn\u2019t there anyone else just as smart and savvy who also looks and sounds like a movie president?<\/p>\n

Trump is \u201calpha\u201d and very media savvy, but not obviously book smart in the same way that Cruz or Bobby Jindal are (and he\u2019s been depantsed organizationally by Cruz, so his management skills are similarly questionable).<\/p>\n

Hillary would never get anywhere near the presidency if \u201cnatural political ability\u201d were as necessary to become president as \u201cnatural pitching ability\u201d is to win the Cy Young award.<\/p>\n

Rubio has a lot of natural political ability, but was mostly done in by his disastrous strategery (and he\u2019s 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\u2019t pro-amnesty, and is just a little bit smarter.<\/p>\n

Politics clearly selects for some quality other than the surface qualities of intelligence, looks, charisma, debating ability, etc. Perhaps cravenness, or dumb luck?<\/p>\n

* He ran a bit of a copycat campaign. Unfortunately for him, he isn\u2019t very likable. The more people got to know him, the more they didn\u2019t like him. Trump is good at exploiting people\u2019s personal flaws.<\/p>\n

* 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.<\/p>\n

There might have been a more nuanced way to deal with ethanol subsidies\u2013 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s not a natural leader of men, so for him to come in second … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29716],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ted-cruz"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t