Ted Cruz is leading the state of Iowa while campaigning openly in favor of phasing out the ethanol (made from corn) mandate in gasoline over a five year period. It just goes to show that principled politics and campaigning does still have a place in this country. Clearly on this issue Ted Cruz is the candidate who is providing that principled leadership. This really is a pretty gutsy move - in Iowa of all places - compared to the typical standards of some especially well-known politicians, who support nearly every hand-out and give-away imaginable.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">PRESIDENT Hillary Clinton (D) 43% Ted Cruz (R) 50% (Fox News Poll, RV, 1/4-7) Details: <a href="https://t.co/v6fZ17B6VJ">https://t.co/v6fZ17B6VJ</a></p>— PollingReport.com (@pollreport) <a href="https://twitter.com/pollreport/status/685619280369459200">January 9, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
From the most recent Fox News poll Trump (R) 47, Clinton (D) 44 Cruz (R) 50, Clinton (D) 43 Rubio (R) 50, Clinton (D) 41 Clinton (D) 44, Bush (R) 44 Just in case there is anyone still around who still believe that Hillrod still holds any kind of a lead over the leading Republican candidates. She doesn't.
"Just in case there is anyone still around" who refuses to acknowledge a plurality of likely Republican voters are complete idiots, Fox News most recent poll confirms it. Donald Trump 35% Ted Cruz 20% Marco Rubio 13% Ben Carson 10% Jeb Bush 4% Carly Fiorina 3% Chris Christie 2% Rand Paul 2% John Kasich 2% Mike Huckabee 1% http://www.foxnews.com/politics/int...oll-national-presidential-race-obama-ratings/
This is a timely clarification by Ted Cruz. Not that he ever felt differently, but this should surely put to rest his opponents charges that he supports a policy contrary to this. From CNN: The laws should be enforced on the border. Better border security and a more responsible, more flexible guest worker law is needed that makes it a prioritize the job prospects of citizens over foreign workers. However, there is no law for mass roundups and deportations, nor is one needed. Deportations can be handled as part of the ordinary course of enforcing the immigration laws in the workplace, at the border, etc.
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For political reasons, Cruz didn't want to distinguish himself from Trump when the issue was hot. To bad he didn't announce this when it mattered.
Wow, conservative David Brooks really eviscerates Cruz's bombastic scorched earth approach. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/opinion/the-brutalism-of-ted-cruz.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0 Damn. "Ted Cruz is now running strongly among evangelical voters, especially in Iowa. But in his career and public presentation Cruz is a stranger to most of what would generally be considered the Christian virtues: humility, mercy, compassion and grace. ... Traditionally, candidates who have attracted strong evangelical support have in part emphasized the need to lend a helping hand to the economically stressed and the least fortunate among us. Such candidates include George W. Bush, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. But Cruz’s speeches are marked by what you might call pagan brutalism. There is not a hint of compassion, gentleness and mercy. Instead, his speeches are marked by a long list of enemies, and vows to crush, shred, destroy, bomb them. When he is speaking in a church the contrast between the setting and the emotional tone he sets is jarring." ... As the Republican strategist Curt Anderson observed in Politico, there’s no variation in Cruz’s rhetorical tone. As is the wont of inauthentic speakers, everything is described as a maximum existential threat. The fact is this apocalyptic diagnosis is ridiculous." Not presidential. Just scary, but not in the way Cruz intends. He's just exploiting fear for his political ambition.
It's not really surprising, Brooks is a Rubio guy and with Cruz's surge in popularity Rubio is on the ropes.
Any comment on the content? Seems to ring true with all Cruz appearances and statements that I see: it's all apocalypse. It's like he's just playing to AM radio rage to keep himself afloat. He needs to make a few positive suggestions for things he would actually do or build (other than dismantle and destroy other things).
I think that's what makes him so popular as an outsider in an opposition party. Being the firebrand is much easier than actually governing. Like him or not, Brooks speaks for a large tribe within the GOP that is not at all enamored by the party's populist, know-nothing segment that is openly hostile to it.
I'm not really high on Cruz myself. He does sometimes come across as a dick when it comes to some of his policies so I could see some of the criticism. Funny enough, the Cruz campaign hit me up yesterday looking for cash for ads to respond to this article. I don't know how they came up with my number or the notion that I would be interested in that sort of thing, but it was funny.
I've got a comment. You left out this bit where David Brooks actually comes out and compares Ted Cruz to Satan on the PBS NewsHour. Talk about Cruz Derangement Syndrome. Brooks has pretty clearly lost his grip here. In case there was any remaining uncertainty about how close the Republican establishment is to actual out-and-out hysteria, David Brooks is giving us a peek at that here.
Pundits will say whatever someone is paying them to say. If you never put any stock in David Brooks before you shouldn't lend any credibility when he says something you might agree with.
