Ted Cruz

[Pointedstick]

I think he would get nothing done because the GOP establishment despises him and actively works against him. Cruz has demonstrated no power or influence over his party or ability to make things happen in a challenging political environment. 8 more years of gridlock and bitterness. I'd vote for him over Hillary, but I'd much prefer Trump.

What's happening in Iowa right now is that Cruz is simply picking up Carson's former supporters as they abandon him. His momentum in the polls doesn't really represent anything he did as much as it is simply him benefiting from the implosion of one of his rivals who attracts the same demographic.

[Jack Jones]

I think he would get nothing done because the GOP establishment despises him and actively works against him. Cruz has demonstrated no power or influence over his party or ability to make things happen in a challenging political environment. 8 more years of gridlock and bitterness. I'd vote for him over Hillary, but I'd much prefer Trump.

What makes Trump more able to get things through the GOP establishment?

[Pointedstick]

I think he would get nothing done because the GOP establishment despises him and actively works against him. Cruz has demonstrated no power or influence over his party or ability to make things happen in a challenging political environment. 8 more years of gridlock and bitterness. I'd vote for him over Hillary, but I'd much prefer Trump.

What makes Trump more able to get things through the GOP establishment?

Trump has already made the GOP establishment his bitch. He effectively owns them because they need him more than he needs them, and he has the power to destroy them while they lack that power over him, and both parties know these things.

[Jack Jones]

Trump has already made the GOP establishment his bitch. He effectively owns them because they need him more than he needs them, and he has the power to destroy them while they lack that power over him, and both parties know these things.

Because if he runs independent, the Democrats win?

[Reub]

New national poll today shows Trump well ahead among Republicans. Not even close. The left, liberal press, and RINOs all desperately want him gone. But he's not going.

Trump 41%
Cruz 14%

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/p ... igh-216741

[WiseOne]

Jafs, have you ever owned cats, as in at least two simultaneously?  They beautifully demonstrate how collaboration, peaceful co-existence, and competition can all be present in the same individuals.


Actually let me turn the thread topic around for a moment.  What is it about Ted Cruz do people like so much?  I'm completely mystified by that.  And unfortunately, if Trump doesn't get the nomination, Ted Cruz likely will.

[Xan]

Conversely, I'm not understanding the dislike for Cruz.  What's not to like?  I understand the issues with being a first-term senator, and perhaps with the Goldman Sachs connections, but I think what you're describing goes deeper than that.

[WiseOne]

I was hoping you could tell me what there is to like about him.

Isn't he the guy who was at the forefront of the efforts to send the U.S. into default rather than raise the debt ceiling, if Obamacare wasn't repealed?

And his flat tax abolish-the-IRS idea is a nonstarter, as well as a fairly blatant reshuffling of the tax burden down to the lower end of the income scale.

Also (and forgive lack of specifics but I don't have the citations ready to hand) he's made many statements that, to me, sound like he is not quite sane.

Other than that, he's a pretty standard socially conservative Republican.  Emphasis on socially.

[Xan]

Well, I like that he's socially conservative, that he's actually trying to repeal Obamacare which is what the Republicans are supposed to be doing, and I think that a consumption tax instead of a production tax makes a lot of sense.

[Pointedstick]

What I don't like about Cruz is that apparently everyone who's ever met him in person hates him. That doesn't seem to bode well for the collaborative world of running a large organization--something he notably has absolutely no experience at all in--public or private. The guy would probably make a razor-sharp Supreme Court justice, and I think he would succeed in replacing Scalia, but I wouldn't expect him to succeed as the president.

[Reub]

Cruz reminds me of Richard Nixon. But I liked Richard Nixon.

[rickb]

Conversely, I'm not understanding the dislike for Cruz.  What's not to like?  I understand the issues with being a first-term senator, and perhaps with the Goldman Sachs connections, but I think what you're describing goes deeper than that.

His Republican peers in the Senate don't just dislike him, they hate him - see http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... -cruz.html

And it's apparently not just the Republican establishment.  Some quotes from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/opini ... -cruz.html:

Why do people take such an instant dislike to Ted Cruz? It just saves time.

I would rather have anybody else be the president of the United States. Anyone. I would rather pick somebody from the phone book.

[Pointedstick]

The more I think about it, the more Cruz gives me a very Obama-like vibe, same as Rubio. The guy is also a freshman senator with no real accomplishments, he's also a former lawyer, he also gives a good speech and has a razor wit, and his career is clearly 100% looking out for number one instead of actually getting anything done for others.

[Libertarian666]

I was hoping you could tell me what there is to like about him.

Isn't he the guy who was at the forefront of the efforts to send the U.S. into default rather than raise the debt ceiling, if Obamacare wasn't repealed?

Come on WiseOne, you're smarter than that.

Refusing to increase the debt limit is not in any way "sending the US into default", any more than the bank refusing to increase your credit card limit "sends you into default".

All it means is that you can't keep increasing your debt.

[MediumTex]

The more I think about it, the more Cruz gives me a very Obama-like vibe, same as Rubio. The guy is also a freshman senator with no real accomplishments, he's also a former lawyer, he also gives a good speech and has a razor wit, and his career is clearly 100% looking out for number one instead of actually getting anything done for others.

And like Obama, he is a Harvard Law School smarty pants.

[Benko]

The more I think about it, the more Cruz gives me a very Obama-like vibe, same as Rubio. The guy is also a freshman senator with no real accomplishments, he's also a former lawyer, he also gives a good speech and has a razor wit, and his career is clearly 100% looking out for number one instead of actually getting anything done for others.

And like Obama, he is a Harvard Law School smarty pants.

Could Obama capably present to the supreme court? 

Or would he lecture  them like everyone else?

[MediumTex]

The more I think about it, the more Cruz gives me a very Obama-like vibe, same as Rubio. The guy is also a freshman senator with no real accomplishments, he's also a former lawyer, he also gives a good speech and has a razor wit, and his career is clearly 100% looking out for number one instead of actually getting anything done for others.

And like Obama, he is a Harvard Law School smarty pants.

Could Obama capably present to the supreme court? 

Or would he lecture  them like everyone else?

Obama taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School for several years before entering politics, and they offered him a full professorship before he decided to seek elected office.

I think that Obama would probably make a good Supreme Court litigator or left-leaning Supreme Court justice.

[MediumTex]

Could Obama capably present to the supreme court? 

Or would he lecture  them like everyone else?

Obama taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School for several years before entering politics, and they offered him a full professorship before he decided to seek elected office.

I think that Obama would probably make a good Supreme Court litigator or left-leaning Supreme Court justice.

i cant substantiate the veracity, but i just recently heard that what he was teaching wasn't the constitution in the manner you might imagine hearing "constitutional law professor" but some kind of class he designed himself on the topic of  Current Issues in Racism and the Law,  there are also rumors? that there was a bit of an affirmative action/strings pulled to get him the job thing in the first place..

Maybe so, but still Harvard Law School and a University of Chicago Law School teaching position aren't bad credentials for an aspiring Supreme Court litigator.

Obama is clearly a very smart guy.  IMHO, it's mostly a lack of political skill and experience that has made him an ineffective President, regardless of whether someone agrees with his political views.

[Pointedstick]

Obama is clearly a very smart guy.  IMHO, it's mostly a lack of political skill and experience that has made him an ineffective President, regardless of whether someone agrees with his political views.

Agreed. Dummies don't go as far as he did. The whole "affirmative action life" charge IMHO breaks down when you need to use it to explain everything. It starts to resemble the "Donald Trump is nothing more than a lucky buffoon!" hypothesis.

[Benko]

"Maybe so, but still Harvard Law School and a University of Chicago Law School teaching position aren't bad credentials for an aspiring Supreme Court litigator."

In the medical world big name university credentials don't necessarily mean anything, and the name Harvard is particularly suspect--at least for academic excellence. Perhaps things are different in law.

[MediumTex]

"Maybe so, but still Harvard Law School and a University of Chicago Law School teaching position aren't bad credentials for an aspiring Supreme Court litigator."

In the medical world big name university credentials don't necessarily mean anything, and the name Harvard is particularly suspect--at least for academic excellence. Perhaps things are different in law.

All I'm suggesting is that both Cruz and Obama are probably smart enough and have the right credentials to do almost anything involving the law.

The idea that Obama and Cruz are sort of mirror images of one another makes a lot of sense.  I suspect that if Cruz were elected President, he would demonstrate the same type of naive arrogance that Obama brought to the job.

[MediumTex]

Obama is clearly a very smart guy.  IMHO, it's mostly a lack of political skill and experience that has made him an ineffective President, regardless of whether someone agrees with his political views.

Agreed. Dummies don't go as far as he did. The whole "affirmative action life" charge IMHO breaks down when you need to use it to explain everything. It starts to resemble the "Donald Trump is nothing more than a lucky buffoon!" hypothesis.

i wouldn't support the "affirmative action life" charge either, nor would i say he is weak as a politician, (he is weak as a leader) he has an abundant capacity for all the smarmy, double talking,  working relationships, look you in the eye and lie (what ever i say seems truthful, as long as it suits me and furthers, first and foremost my goals.. but i can equally say the opposite tomorrow without a twitch) to me those are his qualifications, plus a little help here and there from those who benefit from helping him out, add in being a smooth talker/speech giver, and it gets him in to, and moved up everywhere he has been,

not a lack of talent or intelagence by any measure, but deeply endowed and blessed by talents that normal (non ladder climber, non political class, non shallow ) people find disturbing or have no respect for (rightly so IMHO) 

Perhaps Obama's greatest weakness is that he is so transparent.

An enormous asset to any political leader is for people to think he is a dope.  As long as he is not actually a dope, the label can be a great asset.  I think that Reagan used the label with great skill. 

A guy like Obama never wants to look like he's not the smartest and coolest guy in the room.  If your opponents know you have that bit of vanity, they will use it against you relentlessly.

Although it didn't seem that way at the time, in retrospect Reagan appears to have been a remarkably inscrutable leader.  At one point in the SDI negotiations, Reagan is reported to have simply offered to give the Soviets whatever SDI technology the U.S. developed so that they could us it too.  Not even considering the idea that such an offer should be taken at face value, the Soviet thinking on SDI shattered into a million theories about what was really going on (Are they trying to trick us into bankrupting ourselves due to the system's cost?  Are they going to feed us bad data so that it doesn't work?  Are they going to put in a kill switch that will allow them to turn our system off when they attack?) .  Apparently, the idea that the technology didn't even exist didn't cross their minds.  That's what an inscrutable leader can do for you when negotiating.

[Benko]

"Maybe so, but still Harvard Law School and a University of Chicago Law School teaching position aren't bad credentials for an aspiring Supreme Court litigator."

In the medical world big name university credentials don't necessarily mean anything, and the name Harvard is particularly suspect--at least for academic excellence. Perhaps things are different in law.

All I'm suggesting is that both Cruz and Obama are probably smart enough and have the right credentials to do almost anything involving the law.

The idea that Obama and Cruz are sort of mirror images of one another makes a lot of sense.  I suspect that if Cruz were elected President, he would demonstrate the same type of naive arrogance that Obama brought to the job.

"All I'm suggesting is that both Cruz and Obama are probably smart enough and have the right credentials to do almost anything involving the law."

Credentials sure, but that has little to do with performance.  I gather Cruz was an expert debater and skilled presenter when he went before the supreme court.  I"m skeptical that O has those abilities to that extent.  If Cruz had been in Obama's place, I find it difficult to believe he would have demonstrated the mount Everest of incompetence that characterized Obamacare roll out.  Not that O is too stupid to have overseen it, he apparently did not care enough. 

[Pointedstick]

Although it didn't seem that way at the time, in retrospect Reagan appears to have been a remarkably inscrutable leader.  At one point in the SDI negotiations, Reagan is reported to have simply offered to give the Soviets whatever SDI technology the U.S. developed so that they could us it too.  Not even considering the idea that such an offer should be taken at face value, the Soviet thinking on SDI shattered into a million theories about what was really going on (Are they trying to trick us into bankrupting ourselves due to the system's cost?  Are they going to feed us bad data so that it doesn't work?  Are they going to put in a kill switch that will allow them to turn our system off when they attack?) .  Apparently, the idea that the technology didn't even exist didn't cross their minds.  That's what an inscrutable leader can do for you when negotiating.

Brilliant.

That sounds a lot like the kind of thing I expect Donald Trump to do as president. Notably, a very large number of people--including foreign world leaders, apparently--think that Trump is some kind of clownish idiot buffoon. Big asset.