good writeup on Cruz in Politico http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/ted-cruz-2016-establishment-george-bush-213561?o=0
The anti-establishment movement has really developed in earnest since the Democrats passed Obamacare in 2010. It was shortly after this when earmarks were reluctantly banned by Congress. This was when the Tea Party movement began. Then came the mid-term elections of 2010, when the American people threw the Democrats out of the House of Representatives. In 2014, the Republicans campaigned on the theme that if only we had the Senate, then we would be willing to stand up for what we believe in, which they subsequently failed to do in spectacular fashion. And now moving into the 2016 election, anti-establishment fever has swept the country, with Trump and Cruz dominating the polls on the Republican side, and with the socialist Bernie Sanders showing remarkable support among the Democrat left. The establishment is currently trying to diminish the huge negative power of being tagged as an "establishment" politician by: Trying to sell the idea that there is no such thing as the establishment, Trying to expand the boundaries of the establishment out so wide as to render the concept meaningless, and Trying to brand people who clearly are not associated with the current establishment as if they are. Here we see an ineffective example of the last in the Politico article linked above. The only people in the establishment that Republican voters need to be concerned about are members of Congress who voted for the $1.8 Trillion federal funding bill which was passed on December 18, 2015. Here is are the lists of how all members of the House and Senate voted on this: Consolidated Appropriations Act (House) Motion to Waive All Applicable Budgetary Discipline (Senate) All Republicans who campaigned as conservatives and against the high profile measures contained in this legislation are liars, cowards and betrayers of the interests of their constituents who they were elected to serve. If they had any honor, these people would resign their positions at once. Since those resignations do not appear to be forthcoming, these despicable traitors should be primaried and sent home, just like Eric Cantor. Democrats appear to broadly embrace the Washington DC political establishment, as their support of the candidacy of Hillary Clinton demonstrates, so none of this appears to apply to them.
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I've noticed there's a sudden lack of Mojoman posts about Iowa and NH polls these days, despite the numerous ones coming out daily.
Tell me about it. Cruz is moving all right, downward. I thought he had a chance for a blowout win in Iowa but it appears things will be close.
It depends who shows up at the polls. If Donald Trump turns out new caucus goers in numbers that dwarf past election years, busting all turnout records for Iowa caucuses in spectacular fashion, which is what the Fox News and CNN polls are currently assuming in their polls, then Trump will likely win. However, how many times have we heard, "this time it is different," with regards to a candidate and turnout, etc., only to find out when the votes are tallied that it is not really so different at all. The one thing that appears to be becoming different is that the polls are becoming more erratic and are displaying quite a bit more variance, and may not be as reliable as in the past, for reasons that most of us are already familiar with. Looks like we will just have to wait until next Monday and see what actually happens.
LOL. So when the polls showed what you wanted to believe, you post them insisting they are relevant. When they don't, you find reasons why the polls might be wrong. You haven't learned a thing since your prediction trainwreck in 2012.
I have not predicted anything here. Cruz was regarded as a second tier candidate by most people, including yourself, as recently as 90 days ago. Clearly, he is a first tier candidate who is in a competitive position to make a real run at this here. I thought he would do a lot better than people like you and the rest of the leftist echo chamber did, which so far, he has. And I wanted to write about that for you guys so you would not be too surprised to see it happening, which I have. He might win. He might not. The polls are getting quite erratic, in part because of the wide range of turnout assumptions that are being used. However, among the last minute polls released at the end of this week, just days before the election, there could certainly be a few that are in the ballpark. Then again, upsets happen quite a bit in this sort of contest, so perhaps not. We shall see soon enough.
In fact the Republican establishment is not supporting Trump or surrendering to his inevitability as the Republican nominee. Rather, they are trying to take out Cruz as the primary Trump alternative, opening the way probably for Marco Rubio to fill that position and eventually, they hope, win the Republican nomination. They are not giving up. Don't be fooled.
Cruz is a second tier candidate becuase he will not become President of the United States of America in 2017, becuase he is a sh-thead, among other reasons. I will bet my precious BBS D&D career on it - I dare you to bet yours.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/PatrickSvitek">@PatrickSvitek</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/tedcruz">@tedcruz</a> that's 93% coverage of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IowaCaucus?src=hash">#IowaCaucus</a>. Santorum had 58% precinct captain coverage in 2012.</p>— Lucius (@LuciusCoverdale) <a href="https://twitter.com/LuciusCoverdale/status/692006619392122881">January 26, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Strong liberal logic right here, folks. "because he's a sh!thead". Strong take, brah. Also, I know you're a hot shot lawyer, Sam, but you might want to work on your document review capabilities. The word is spelled "because", not "becuase". You misspelled it twice. Once could be written off as a typo, but twice means you don't know how to spell the word.
The end of your career here as a troll here on this board, which you have illustrated yet again with your post above, would not be enough of a loss to warrant a wager against it, even if the wager was legitimate, which clearly yours isn't.
I think Cruz still wins Iowa, by a thin margin. I trust fivethirtyeight.com for their predictions more than any other source and their Polls-plus forecast has Cruz pulling it out. With that said, I do not like Cruz.
The "leftist echo chamber", whatever that is, has dismissed his chances to win the Presidency, not a wild-west GOP primary. The general belief of the left - and the establishment right - is that the GOP primary voters are unhinged from the rest of America and no one can predict what they will do. They have routinely nominated crazy people for the Senate that cost them numerous opportunities over the years - no one is surprised it might happen again.
I suspect that is right, however the polls are getting so erratic and there is so much crap flying around in advance of this race, it is getting hard to see through it all. Also, these early caucus votes have an unusually high tendency to produce upset winners and completely unexpected results. So as cliched as it sounds, we are just going to have to wait until the vote is counted to know for sure.
538 and Nate Silver change their positions all through these races. And then their final estimate two days before the election is what they are measured on, to the exclusion of everything else they said before that.
The establishment is trying to take out Cruz because they know he is a nightmare candidate. He is the least equipped to make the 'run to the center' necessary to win a general election. That's besides being a huge turd of a human being. Cruz is going to make it to the final round in the primaries because he gives the hardliners and ideologues a boner, but he's ultimately going to get pushed out because Trump will not quit and that takes away a large portion of Cruz's tea party backers permanently.