Cruz takes the low road to victory

Senator-too proud for prime time-Cruz made a spectacle of himself in Cleveland. The former presidential candidate framed his prime time convention protest against Trump as a matter of “conscience,” which was the buzzword for the Never Trump people.

He called it standing on principled. But Trust Ted cannot be trusted to keep his pledge.

Memo: do not mistake pride for principle. His excuse is principle, but pride is the reason he cannot work with others or join forces to keep the country from falling off the cliff.

Ted Cruz and the Trump Takeover

Pat Buchanan | Townhall

The self-righteousness and smugness of Ted Cruz in refusing to endorse Donald Trump, then walking off stage in Cleveland, smirking amidst the boos, takes the mind back in time.

At the Cow Palace in San Francisco in July of 1964, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, having been defeated by Barry Goldwater, took the podium to introduce a platform plank denouncing “extremism.”

Implication: Goldwater’s campaign is saturated with extremists.

Purpose: Advertise Rocky’s superior morality.

Smug and self-righteous, Rocky brayed at the curses and insults, “It’s a free country, ladies and gentlemen.”

Rocky was finished. He would never win the nomination.

Richard Nixon took another road, endorsed Goldwater, spoke for him in San Francisco, campaigned for him across America. And in 1968, with Goldwater’s backing, Nixon would rout Govs. George Romney and Rockefeller, and win the presidency, twice.

Sometimes, loyalty pays off.

http://townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/2016/07/22/ted-cruz-and-the-trump-takeover-n2195889<

Ted has a problem. His political strategy is dependent on his theory that he has a lock on all the issues. He obviously doesn’t. Ted seems to believe he is an island to himself.

If there was any doubt about what he meant by conscience in the speech, he removed all doubt the next morning in a press conference with Texas delegates. He came out to say his problem with Trump was a personal thing, and that was same reason he broke his pledge to support the nominee.

And so Ted’s supporters based their support partly on the premise of his pledge to the RNC. But now breaking that is a righteous act to Ted — one of dissent. What a difference a few months makes. He deceived supporters and the RNC with his pledge, then backed out on his word, which he said was his bond. There’s principle for you. But for that pledge he was given access to the database of the GOP. He waffled on his part of the deal, while the RNC kept theirs. Now he said it was for a personal reasons he “abrogated” his pledge.

Best of both worlds

Ted Cruz, in his standard stump speech says:

“And if you want to see the economy take off you lift the boot of the federal government off the back of the neck of small businesses. If I am elected president:

• We will repeal every word of Obamacare.
• We’ll pass common sense healthcare reform that makes health insurance personal and portable and affordable, and keeps government from getting in between us and our doctors.
• We will pass a simple flat tax.
• We will rein in the federal regulators who have descended like locusts on small businesses, killing jobs all across this country.
• We’re going to stop amnesty, secure the border, end sanctuary cities, and end welfare benefits for those here illegally.

I have a suggestion that should make everyone happy. If you like Cruz, you can have your Cruz. If you like Trump, you can have your Trump. How is that?

Well, we could elect Donald Trump president, and Cruz can continue his term in the Senate. In fact, reelect Ted again when he runs in two years.

So we have Trump President and Ted Cruz can continue his agenda and do all the things he said: repeal Obamacare, pass healthcare reform and pass tax reform. We do that and we have our cake and eat it too.

Captain Iggy Bliss ©

Allow me to introduce myself

Hi, my name is Iggy Bliss, and I’ve been asked by the blog owner to do a few posts. At least until he tells me to STFU. You’ll hear from me occasionally.

That’s Iggy to most of you, which stands for ignorant – proudly. I’ve been called blissfully ignorant and that is a good moniker. So here I am, Captain Iggy Bliss, at your service.

By that description, I am just happily ignorant. And I plan on sharing some of that wisdom with people here. If you are a Trump supporter, you may have been called ignorant at some point. If not, you will.

Now you might but I don’t consider it satire, since I don’t really know what that is. I plan to cover a limited and selective amount of subjects here because, after all, I’m blissfully ignorant. That won’t stop me from applying my talent wherever I can.

I’m also driven by animal spirits because the same source has called me an animal and a miscreant. So you never know what I might say or do traced to that animal nature.

Just as a primer, I came across this:

Excuse me, but doesn’t Ted Cruz want an open convention? Isn’t he basing his hopes on that — a ballot after the first ballot? I guess that is what makes me ignorant.

Captain Iggy Bliss ™©

Chaos in Cleveland redux: deja vu all over again

This article is a good reminder worth a read. Circa 1912 — dang how history warns.

Rules of the GOP Fraternal Order

A lesson from the 1912 Taft-TR Convention.

By Jeffrey Lord – 4.15.16 | American Spectator

Rule One: Don’t question the rules.

Rule Two: Unless you want to change the rules to preserve the Ruling Order.

The other day, a surely very nice guy who was identified as a former Colorado Republican Party Chairman appeared on CNN to discuss the latest state of play in the Trump-RNC dust-up. Among other things he dismissed concern over Colorado’s rules for selecting delegates by saying that they had been in place since… 1912.

Uh-oh. In saying this the ex-chairman clearly unwittingly opened a door that makes Donald Trump’s point about GOP Establishment-types monkeying with the rules, and makes it more or less exactly. Why? Well, hop into the time traveling machine and come with me back to, yes, 1912.

The Republican Party is in absolute turmoil. President William Howard Taft is in the White House, the protégé of his predecessor and old friend President Theodore Roosevelt having won the White House four years earlier after TR declined to run for a third term. But now? Teddy Roosevelt is upset with his old friend. It seems Will Taft has turned out to be a tad more conservative than the trust-busting TR approved. OK, actually a lot more conservative. And so TR, more than furious, has plunged headlong into the presidential race, directly challenging Taft for the GOP nomination. Also in the race was a third candidate: the liberal Wisconsin Senator Robert LaFollette.

They battle across the country, with Roosevelt winning 9 of 12 states that had primaries. But the rest of the then-48 states had no primaries. And as the Chicago Convention approached, the delegate numbers stood this way: …/

Continue reading: http://spectator.org/articles/66052/rules-gop-fraternal-order

Well, it did happen before. Oops, what was that Teddy called it?
“We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord.”
Them are pretty inflammatory words.

What sticks in my craw is that they all accused Trump of issuing threats for predicting or stating that there very well could be trouble at the convention. But countless other people, even Cruz, are apparently free to speak about the coming chaos in Cleveland. . However threat accusations come only as Trump talks about pending pandemonium.

(The Hill) “Any time you hear someone talking about a brokered convention, it is the Washington establishment in a fevered frenzy, they are really frustrated because all their chosen candidates, their golden children, the voters keep rejecting,

So they seize on this plan of a brokered convention, and the D.C. power brokers will drop someone in who is exactly to the liking of the Washington establishment. If that would happen, we would have a manifest revolt on our hands all across this country.” — Cruz to CPAC

Even the media has alluded to problems. In fact, media has talked about the ensuing Convention turmoil as good for their business. Trump warns about problems and they accuse him of inciting violence. At this point, it would be hard to believe there would not be problems at the convention. I mean I wonder what Vegas odds are predicting?

Of course to talk about the desperate Party apparatus and fed up voters is now construed as a threat. Meanwhile, GOPe have contemplated running an independent candidate. No, let us focus on predictions and warnings as threats.

Camp Cruz attacks on Trump’s wife

When did the attacks on Trump’s wife start? Somewhere around March 8, right before the primary, and here is the video showing it

Texas lobbyist, Andrea McWilliams delivers the goods on Cavuto FBN. (video)
Slippery slime. (@ 4 min mark)

Sea also Gateway Pundit
Nice. Cruz Supporter Trashes Melania Trump for Posing Nude as Model

Then along comes Romney who can’t resist partaking in the attack of Melania Trump. At a dinner for the Republican Congressional Committee he let fly a gutter remark joke about Trump’s wife. Seem like a coordinated effort? Then Ted says about the Utah attack ad that it didn’t come from his campaign. But he couldn’t condemn the ad or the comments about Melania.

Right, the same guy who cried about cartoonists characterizing his children, which everyone condemned. Now Cruz claims he is being attacked, and the chief victim, by Trump’s response. But this is just politics to Cruz. He also could not stand up to the protestors who are trying to silence Trump at rallies — he condemned Trump. No, the cat got Cruz’s tongue, he can’t even condemn an ad by a pac supporting him.

Then when Ted responded to Trump’s response to the attacks, Ted calls him a coward using a movie quote. He really has a thing for movie lines and scripts. Too bad he doesn’t have a thing for doing the right thing. It took some time, after this recent incident, before Cruz admitted the ad was inappropriate, though it was used and he himself was the beneficiary. It’s been a part of his campaign since at least March 8th. Where was Ted?

Now Ted says, “I don’t make a habit out of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my family,” Who attacked his wife or family? Oh, Cruz is the victim? Sorry Ted, it’s your campaign doing personal attacks on your opponent’s family. Right, the Ted who claimed he(his campaign) does not do personal attacks, staying on the issues. What issues are these? Note campaign Cruz is talking about Melania being a foreign born while Ted was foreign-born in Canada. (someone memo McWilliams) Crisp hypocrisy.

Just cheap suits and cheap movie lines.

The numbers game

If it is just a numbers game, as people keep repeating these polls, then take a look at them. My comments are a few thoughts that jump out at me. Some things just bug me.

There is a Real Clear Politics page and then there is an AOL article I saw, on the current landscape — a matchup with Hillary.

Questions arise every time I keep hearing these same things repeated. So then why do they keep making a fuss over the details? Some of the polls mentioned are months old.

Cruz likes to point out they show he beats Hillary, by 1 point, in a matchup. But he loses according to the NBC/WSJ poll by 2 points.

News just came out that, according to WSJ , one third or 33% of Sanders’ supporters will not support Hillary. Isn’t that just delicious? His poll number now, with Hillary, is about 40% which means one third of that will not go to Hillary. So that is about 13% voter loss of their electorate for Hillary. Maybe she can write that off?

So Trump loses, by their polls and Cruz can win, albeit by 0.8& But its already a given that some of those Trump supporters will not support Cruz. Isn’t it funny how we’re only told many Cruz Supporters won’t support Trump– “Never Trump.” Back to the point, if Trump loses to Hillary, and DT voters won’t vote for Cruz, then what effect does that have? So if Trump loses against Hillary, then there must be more Cruz voters who will not support Trump. Does that make sense? And if Hillary is down say 13% with her voters(former Bernie voters), then what’s wrong? Plus we know that Trump did bring in more voters. I’d say some things here don’t make sense or add up.

In a matchup against Sanders, Bernie wins by wider margins. He beats Cruz handily, in double digits, and beats Trump by even more. Funny that neither Cruz or Sanders did well in Florida or Ohio — two huge states in the general. Why does Bernie win by that much more? Maybe there are number geniuses out there that make sense of all this.

Of course if you want my unprofessional opinion, both sides may want Cruz to be the nominee to go against Clinton. And I smell a little slant to the left in it all.

Then there is the states problem. It’s expected Hillary is favored in Michigan, Ohio and Florida. They say she does well there. But Cruz has not done well in any of them. Trump took Florida in double digits and didn’t do too badly in Ohio against its popular incumbent governor. Yet they give the advantage to Cruz against Hillary.

My exhaustive conclusion:
So according to my estimates, using all this info and a computer, I safely predict the only thing that can consistently beat Heir Hillary is the Dep of Justice or an indictment.

RightRing | Bullright

Interesting election dichotomy

With another win safely tucked under Trump’s belt, the message is becoming clearer. Trump seems poised to take the nomination, surprising some and pissing off others.

However, there is one interesting thing I find. The estabos are mad of course, but they seem powerless against the up and comer. Well now, when you parse it down it reveals something else. With Cruz and Trump relying on conservatives — frustrated ones that is — they tend to split up that vote. The various ways don’t mean much except that a split should work to the favor of the establishment, RNC types. But then when you see Rubio barely tying Cruz now for the second time, it reveals how weak the establishment is.

If I read it my way, that implies establishment support is less than a third. That would be bad news for establishment. Then when you parse down how much of that candidate vote really is by and for the establishment, it looks worse and worse. Not all Rubio’s vote is establishment support. No, I don’t know the particular numbers and don’t have to to make some generalizations on how weak that establishment support really is. So it is not just a year of the outsider but also the year of the shrinking establishment.

Then there is the strange desire that estabos want either Cruz or preferably Trump out of the race. But that would only further consolidate conservatives, except for the ones who swear they won’t vote for Trump. So their strategy would tend to work against them.

There is the other problem: the ‘sworn-off’ vote. When it comes to the general, they will have to support the nominee or nothing. How many times have we conservatives been told we have to hold our noses? So that part of the vote seems to be irrelevant in the end.

Then there is the problem, so they say, of the high negatives of Trump. Really? Have you seen Hillary’s negatives? But how meaningful are those high negatives in the general election between two candidates? Now with an outsider, insurgent, anti-establishment election, I would expect some high negatives to surface. …Just my observations.

RightRing | Bullright