Originally Posted By ecdc The most hated man in the Senate is running for president. But he was born in Canada to a Cuban father and American mother, so of course there will be a right-wing freak out because we all know birtherism absolutely, positively has nothing whatsoever to do with race.
Originally Posted By Tikiduck At 4% in the polls, I don't see much hope. It will be Jeb and Hillary come election time. That way the accusations of a dynasty will cancel each other out.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer At least the GOP debates will continue the tradition of embarrassing the GOP and rendering most of their candidates utterly unelectable.
Originally Posted By velo Time to start stocking up on popcorn, I guess. The Daily Show should be good tonight...(I don't know how I'm going to go through another election cycle without Jon Stewart).
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I know I'm stating the obvious, but Cruz is in this for one reason: cash. This will guarantee him a certain amount of income for the next 20 years on speaking tours, book deals, Fox News contributor, etc. I really thought that after the last election, the GOP might for once leave the clown car in the garage and take this election seriously. But Cruz is the aaah-OOO-gah horn of the right these days, (now that Bachmann, Palin and Trump have worn out their welcome) and so it figures he'd be the first one to tumble out of the clown car right into the ring.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost >>>But how do you really feel, kartoonman?<<< I don't know, he seemed kinda neutral to me, but, politics is not my thing. ;-)
Originally Posted By Wendy Pleakley Donald Trump has said he questions whether or not Cruz will meet the citizenship requirement to be president. Trump is of course an idiot, but let's give him credit for applying his ridiculousness to members of both parties.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Lesson of the Day: If you're going to run for political office, it will be in your best interest to acquire as many domain names based on your name as you can get: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/23/ted-cruz-website-troll_n_6926598.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...598.html</a> <> Yik Yak, domain names, fake Nigerian princes. Even for a presidential candidate with a Harvard Law School degree, the Internet can be a confusing, unpredictable place. Perhaps this was one of the lessons that Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) team learned Monday. Only hours into his official presidential campaign, the senator was quickly faced with a series of amusing and serious issues surrounding his official campaign website. After Cruz declared his candidacy in a tweet late Sunday night, many journalists and Twitter users quickly noted that someone had already secured several key domain names closely related to the candidate’s own site. Users searching for tedcruz.org will land on the candidate's official campaign site, but users who type in tedcruz.com will be directed to a site with two lines of text reading, “Support President Obama. Immigration Reform Now!” The site is presumably a shot at Cruz’s numerous criticisms of President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration. Trolls also scooped up tedcruzforamerica.com, which automatically redirects users to healthcare.gov, the federal government's online health insurance exchange established by the Affordable Care Act. Cruz has made defunding Obamacare one of his top Senate priorities, helping orchestrate a fight over Obamacare funding that led to the 2013 government shutdown. Cruz also faced bigger problems on his own site. According to Vox, Cruz’s home page launched without Secure Sockets Layer protections, a standard encryption that safeguards sensitive data. Although Cruz’s team appears to have corrected the issue, for several hours, anyone could have redirected users from the home page to an impostor site, fooling users into volunteering sensitive information. Even more strange, on the pages of Cruz's site that were SSL protected, the site also listed nigerian-prince.com as an official alternative web address for Cruz’s campaign. Cruz’s team appears to have fixed this issue as well, but some experts noted that both the SSL protections and the reference to the fake site demonstrate the Cruz campaign’s lack of basic online preparedness. Though the SSL hiccups and domain name trolling may prove to be a momentary headache for Cruz’s online moderators, another issue surfaced online on Monday that may prove to be a greater challenge to the campaign. As the senator delivered his first official campaign speech at Liberty University, many students -- who were required to attend the event -- took to their phones to trash Cruz on the anonymous gossip app Yik Yak. <> Oh yeah. I really want this fool in the White House. 8^P
Originally Posted By ecdc >><-- not a Cruz fan<< What!?! You don't like a self-important, self-serving opportunist demagogue who tells the truth 18% of the time? <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.politifact.com/personalities/ted-cruz/">http://www.politifact.com/pers...ed-cruz/</a>
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Quite apart from the blatant falsehoods, and quite apart from the positions that I disagree with... there's just something so damn OILY about this guy. I don't much care for, let's say, Rubio or Santorum politically either, but they don't come across like shysters like Cruz does. Because - to me at least - he REALLY does.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Rubio or Santorum … they don't come across like shysters like Cruz does<< Don't sell those guys short. They're plenty shyster-y. But I get what you're saying. I think Santorum in particular truly believes everything he says. I think he's nuts, but at least he believes it. Cruz is quite calculating, building a brand for himself, but I don't think even he believes half the nonsense he spouts. It's all part of the act.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< Cruz has made defunding Obamacare one of his top Senate priorities, helping orchestrate a fight over Obamacare funding that led to the 2013 government shutdown. >>> And yet, he's signed up for it himself! Gee, it sure is nice that he can get instant coverage once his wife lost her work-provided coverage, isn't it? <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/24/politics/ted-cruz-obamacare/index.html">http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/24/...dex.html</a> He says that he's signing up through the federal exchange "because it's the law" but that's nonsense. There's nothing stopping him from applying directly to an insurance carrier for coverage.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 "Don't sell those guys short. They're plenty shyster-y." True. But that's more like standard issue pol shyster-y. There's standard issue pol shyster-y... and then there's Cruz. Dude is downright oleaginous.
Originally Posted By velo Something I read (somwhere..) recently referred to Cruz and his ambitions as "Mr. Haney Goes to Washington"** - hahahah, so true! **Green Acres reference for the win!
Originally Posted By RoadTrip The guy scares the crap out of me, because he just might get nominated. Although the big money Republicans will back Bush, there are a huge number of conservatives out there who would back Cruz. They are convinced that the reason Republicans lost in both 2008 and 2012 is that they nominated RINOS.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 The reason I don't give Cruz much chance is because he's probably done if he doesn't win Iowa. And Cruz has a lot of competition in Iowa from Huckabee (who won there in 2008), Santorum (who won there last time), and neighboring-state Walker, who all have appeal to the evangelicals who dominate the GOP caucuses, plus wild card Paul who has his (and his father's) totally committed cadre. So I just don't see him winning Iowa. NH will almost certainly go to Bush, unless he stumbles very badly. And if you don't win either of the first two, normally your money dries up, the media stops treating you like a contender, you get the loser stink on you, and you drop out. Maybe not if you placed a close 2nd or 3rd in one or both, but that's not a gimme for Cruz. Nevada is 3rd (before SC this time), and if there's any place that likes a shyster, it's Nevada. So maybe. But the media isn't used to treating Nevada like much of a big deal, so I don't know how much that helps him even if he wins it. SC will be tough for him with Huckabee and perhaps Graham in the race (I don't see Graham winning anything BUT SC if he runs, if that - but he might win that). Then there's a month before TX (with him presumably being treated/covered like an afterthought if he's even still in it), and even TX isn't a gimme for Cruz, with Perry also running (albeit maybe out by then for the same reasons) and the Bush name still meaning something there too. So - thank God - I don't see much of a path for Cruz, at least this time. I see him running this time as combination of ego and positioning himself for a future run, as he's still quite young. And possibly angling for a Veep slot, which as a Hispanic he might have a leg up on anyway. My hope is that he not only loses, but loses so badly that it damages his brand.
