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Cruz’s good positioning in campaign recognized by more pundits

It seems I am not the only person who has recognized the smart way Ted Cruz has positioned himself in the on-going presidential campaign.

This article notes that because of Cruz’s clever work, the Republican establishment might find themselves forced to choose between Cruz and Trump, and in that case they will go with Cruz.

By this point, we might be close to the March 1 “Super Tuesday” primaries, most of which will take place in Deep South states where Cruz has trained his focus toward developing strength. He’s been outshone by Trump in most of them to date, but Cruz is building more organization in those states than any other candidate.

We could see a situation where Trump is ahead on the strength of his performance in the early states and still leads in the polls, though he might have commenced fading in the face of the various challenges befalling a presidential candidate and the terror gripping the party of having to nominate a bull-in-a-China-shop like the real estate magnate has not subsided. But while the establishment might believe Trump is beatable, they could be without candidates to beat him. And at that juncture, the unthinkable might become inevitable; namely, that the RINO/Chamber of Commerce GOP establishment might well see Ted Cruz as their only hope to stop Donald Trump from getting the Republican nomination.

The first paragraph in the quote above makes note of something I noticed clearly last week: While the other candidates have been spending a lot of time playing to the cameras, Cruz instead completed a recent campaign swing through the south to prep his campaign for those March 1 “Super Tuesday” primaries, what some are calling SEC primary because so many of them are located in the south. No one else seems to be prepping for this as he is.

Nor is this article the only analysis that has noticed this. Read this commentary of the above article at Hotair. While more skeptical, the author notes, as I do, that in the end the Republican voter is going to go with the more reliable conservative candidate. And that candidate is neither Donald Trump nor Jeb Bush.

So yeah, the establishment would go with the professional politician if they had to decide. And conservative voters, of course, would go with the true conservative. That was the significance of yesterday’s PPP poll out of North Carolina: When given a choice between Trump and Marco Rubio or Scott Walker, righties opt for the latter despite giving Trump fairly solid marks on favorability. Meanwhile, undecideds would line up behind the professional pol, knowing that he’d be less likely to alienate swing voters with his rhetoric in the general election and therefore would be more electable. And even some Trump fans, satisfied that the true RINOs in the race like Jeb Bush had been eliminated, would switch to Cruz knowing that he’s as anti-establishment in his own way as Trump is. I think Cruz wins the war with Trump easily.

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11 comments

  • Cotour

    Cruz is strategically simpatico and allying himself with Trump, the ticket may end up being Trump / Cruz and then Cruz and Unknown at this time, in order to control the presidency for the coming 16 years.

    I know of your disdain for Trump but he is developing a very broad appeal in the consciousness of the public in both the Republican and the Democrat base. He appears to be deadly serious about this “project”, do not discount his determination in being able manifest his vision.

    I am sure that Trumps strategy at this point (and he is doing it without much effort, he is a natural) is to drag the republican leadership to accepting him just based on pure force of numbers. The Republican leadership, as many here will be, forced to accept him.

    Real change will not happen in America without trashing the current accepted lame paradigm that is destroying our country! Think different.

  • frank

    Trump is the vanguard, fearlessly saying what needs to be said. Im not a fan of his ego and pride, but the criticisms of him from the left and right are are either personal, or broad swipes intended to discount his ideas as unworkable. Neither are landing. He’s a master of keeping himself in play.

    He’s reached critical mass and can’t be discounted. I’m waiting for the articulate response to him and don’t hear it yet.

  • Jwing

    The noted liberal Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz, has been quoted as saying that in all his years teaching law at Harvard, Ted Cruz was the brightest student he had the pleasure of teaching. That’s saying something.

  • I don’t think my commenters here are seeing the point of my post. I am not arguing for or against Trump. In fact, the post has little to do with Trump. Nor is the point to discuss the philosophical pros and cons of the various candidates.

    The point of the post was to note the shrewd campaign strategy of Cruz, and how it appears to be positioning him well for the candidacy. This is not a knock on Trump, or anyone one else. It is instead an attempt to figure out how the campaign will unfold in the coming months.

  • Cotour

    Your Dershowitz point in my estimation translates into Cruz being more of a Constitutional / political technician which is why I really want him to take control of the Senate.

  • Frank

    And by commenting on Trump I was not dismissing your point which I agree with. Cruz is both principled and a smart politician. One could say he’s drafting behind Trump.

  • D.K. Williams

    I must respectfully disagree. The GOP in recent times has gone with moderate candidates, i.e., McCain and Romney. Also, Cruz, Walker, Carson, and to some extent Rubio are splitting much of the same pie. Trump, for better or worse, is likely to accumulate a large delegate lead before enough major players drop out to matter. Add Fiorina and Kasich to the mix and it will be very difficult for any rival to Trump to overtake him. The best case to nominate someone other than Trump may be a brokered convention. What fun that would be. I generally don’t watch political conventions much, but this would be worth watching.

  • You could be right. The way the primaries are set up, with many open so that anyone, even Democrats, can vote in them, allows non-Republicans a strong say in what happens. However, that March 1 Super Tuesday involves many southern states that are generally much more conservative. Will they vote for Trump over Cruz? I think not.

    It is very early. Even with good strategy, 2016 might simply not be Cruz’s year, as 1976 was not Reagan’s.

  • Cotour

    A bit of reality developing in the public’s consciousness related to the 2016 presidential race:

    http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2016/trump_change

    And in addition: Hillary IMO will be gone by the end of the year, and will be lucky if she only gets away with paying a massive fine without spending some vacation time courtesy of the Federal government (we can dream).

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/21/us-usa-election-clinton-emails-idUSKCN0QQ0BW20150821

  • Cotour

    In addition, on the “anchor baby” issue, like many I assumed that it was a simply stated Constitutional issue, until I looked into it:

    So you are up to speed on the 14th amendment / illegal alien anchor baby issue. The interpretation of who is a citizen when they are born to illegal alien parents within the boarders of the United States is definitely to be at the discretion of the Congress. And as to who and when someone is under Congresses jurisdiction is a matter of law that Congress is able to interpret and enforce without an amendment to the Constitution.

    http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/amendments/14/essays/167/citizenship.

  • Edward

    Thank you, Robert, for the news on Cruz’s apparent strategy.

    There are too many distractions within the news media to easily get a sense of who these candidates are, but this article gives me a sense that at least one of the ones that I favor has a strategy and a plan. I have not done much data drilling (or is it called mining?) to get better knowledge of the candidates that I favor, but it is looking like Cruz not only has a good track record but is smart enough to figure out a winning strategy.

    If he — or one of the other freedom-loving candidates — can bring that to the White House, we may have a can-do attitude to turn around this country from one that is acquiescing to a growing fascism to one that is going toward retrieving the freedoms removed from us, these past couple of decades.

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