Cruz Rails Against “Politics of Surrender,” Urges Conservatives to Unite
“If conservatives unite, we win”
On Wednesday, Ted Cruz published an article at Politco that skewered the Republican party’s “politics of surrender.” He writes:
In 2010, we were told that Republicans would stand and fight if only we had a Republican House. In 2014, we were told that Republicans would stand and fight just as soon as we won a majority in the Senate and retired Harry Reid. In both instances, the American people obliged. Now we’re told that we must wait until 2017 when we have a Republican president.
Like Charlie Brown and the football, this disconnect explains the massive frustration with Washington. The American people do not believe Republicans will actually do what we say we will do.
And this, of course, is why 62% of Republican voters feel betrayed by the GOP. Despite historic victories handed to Republicans in 2010 and 2014, the GOP refuses to do what they campaigned they’d do and what voters sent them to Washington to do: stop Obama’s agenda.
These “campaign conservatives,” to use Cruz’s term, continue to have their show votes in Congress, meaningless votes intended to appease conservative voters, but then they quietly rubber stamp Obama’s policies. Cruz explains:
Alas, no. In today’s partisan Washington, there are only two important kinds of votes: show votes on legislation that has no chance of becoming law and votes on legislation that “must pass.” (A third kind of vote—growing government and worsening the deficit—occurs as well. These votes succeed because Democrats and Republican leadership agree that expanding corporate welfare and cronyism helps the reelection of career politicians of both parties.)
The leadership loves show votes. They will schedule a vote on just about anything, confident that Senate Democrats will vote party-line and filibuster over and over again until Republicans retreat. Leadership wants and expects grassroots voters to be satisfied with these meaningless show votes.
The other type of vote is on “must-pass” legislation. Typically, these votes consist of continuing-resolution votes, omnibus appropriations votes and debt-ceiling votes. In short, “must-pass” legislation is where the rubber meets the road.
Cruz goes on to explain how he thinks the Republican Congress can live up to the promises its members made on the campaign trail and that they understand to be the will of the people who elected them (thus the show votes).
The alternative? We actually do what we said we would do. We fight for commonsense conservative principles, and we use the constitutional authority of the power of the purse—which leadership has forsworn—to do so.
On the upcoming continuing resolution, we should fund the entire federal government, but we should decline to fund Planned Parenthood. And we should use our constitutional authority to actually try to stop this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal.
Specifically, we should prohibit spending federal funds to implement the deal and eliminate the United States’ contributions to the United Nations, until the Obama administration complies with federal law and hands over the “side deals” governing the absurdly weak inspection regime.
Cruz articulates the frustrations of the conservative base well in this article, and his campaign released an ad yesterday that encapsulates his positions. Watch:
Cruz believes that a consistent conservative can unite the party and win the White House in 2016.
If conservatives unite, we win. So I’m here at #VVS15 today asking you to stand with us: http://t.co/PVsiCtsMqj
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 25, 2015
Cruz explained the need to unite the party at the Value Voters summit yesterday. There, he asserted that Republican voters are purposefully divided, put into separate boxes labeled “Tea Party,” “social conservatives,” “fiscal conservatives,” “evangelicals,” etc. and then pitted against one another until the establishment candidate emerges at the “top,” trumpeted as the “only electable” candidate, and wins the nomination . . . only to then go on and lose the presidency. (That last part is probably not part of the plan, but it is a result that the GOP seems not yet to have registered or understood.)
Watch Cruz’s full speech at the Value Voters summit:
Although he peppers his speech with humor (seeing the teleprompter, he asks, “What are these things? Is Barack Obama coming?”, and poking fun at Hillary Clinton he jokes about the first presidential debate from Leavenworth), Cruz coherently and comprehensively expresses his distaste for the current Republican politics of surrender and offers a different path for the future of the GOP. And of the country.
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Comments
Instead of defunding the Unholy Nations on a temporary basis, the Congress should vote to defund them permanently. Then takes steps to get us out and the U N out of the United States,
So if we stick together and “stand and fight,” we somehow overturn the constitutional requirement for 290 votes in the House and 67 in the Senate to override the vetoes? Great!
OR is it just more stirring up hopes with big talk that means absolutely nothing?
OR did you not read what Cruz said?
One cannot win anything by preemptively surrendering. One wins by fighting for what one believes in. If I want to win a fight or vote or whatever, I will figure out how to do it — legally. Cruz wants congress to FOLLOW the Constitution not “overturn” like is done today.
This is a street fight. The Democrats know it.
To pass legislation requires a majority vote in both Houses of Congress and the agreement of the President, or a veto-proof majority in both Houses of Congress.
That is the reality.
What the GOP got, and which it fairly used, was its ability to put an end to Obama’s major new policy initiatives.
If you want your agenda to pass, you have to get the votes.
We got rid of Jeb Bush, Hillary Rotten Clinton, and Squeaker Boehner. Next will be Mitche McTurtle, after which will be Obama, his executive orders, his occupying high office, Obamacare and the rest of Obama’s malignant legacy.
Have a little hope.
Exhibit A – Why we keep losing.
Question: How does the Left, which amounts to about 25% of the culture, win almost every cultural debate (and when they do lose, do so more narrowly each time)?
You don’t change Constitutional requirements (no one ever claimed this) — you start routing out the phonies and Quislings and put the fear of God into the “campaign conservatives” so votes get closer and costs get higher for caving (and more people like Boehner feel pressure to resign). Cruz is talking not just about numbers (though he reminds us we represent the majority of the country and the two branches of government) but a militant, activist attitude completely incomprehensible to the current class of GOP leaders.
It is not important to win every fight but it is important to actually fight. One reason Obama still has any favorability is that he is never forced to veto anything thus being able to claim to be above the fray
Yes, you’re right. Better to do nothing and wait till you have both Houses and the White House. We conservatives will just have to forget the GOP did nothing with having all three the last time it happened.
The end of the GOPe is nearing; the old GOP is all but lost.
It continues to baffle me, that so many people show so much ignorance about basic negotiating.
This fake premise, that a politician will NEVER change his vote, no matter what, underpins it.
Trust me, when day after day, there are more and more effects from the 20% shut down, the democrats will start changing their votes. You simply have to have the patience to get there.
the D.C. Mayor was begging Reid to cave the last time, and instead the GOP caved first, as usual.
So…. this fake premise, that democrats never change their minds, they never give in, only works because we NEVER TEST THEM. They will cave just like anyone else. It simply takes time.
Anyone who exposes the deceit and the dysfunction of the “campaign conservatives” will gain votes with the Americans who still care about America being a “shining light on a hill” (directed both outward and inward).
Dysfunctional conservatives and Democrats never shine. They smoke and smog.
I’m starting to doubt that the GOP ignores the “last part” as the author put it. They will nominate somebody like Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush in the knowledge that they will probably lose because if it is a Democrat that’s willing to play ball then they’d be Ok with him/her.
Are we ignoring the fact that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell have repeatedly reached backroom deals with Obama to fund his favorite causes? Are we ignoring that in terms of amnesty for illegal immigrants the establishment GOP and the Democrats both want the same thing? So why nominate an actual conservative that will stop all that? No, they prefer to nominate RINOs and if they win excellent and if they don’t…that’s fine too…
Cruz is my candidate. I’m sending him another contribution today.
“We’ll kill the terrorists, we’ll repeal ObamaCare, and we will defend the Constitution…every SINGLE word of it!”
You can’t ask for more than that.
“(That last part is probably not part of the plan, but it is a result that the GOP seems not yet to have registered or understood.)”
No, they understand it completely. They would rather have Hillary as pres than Cruz/trump/carson.
Jeb!, shrillary, it’s all the same to them.
There is a third party of sorts in Washington DC – the sum of politicians from both parties who are fully on board with corruption and collusion with the opposition to keep the feed troughs running high and fast. This is why the GOPe wishes for their own guy to win, but is happy enough with any Dem president belonging to the above third party. It is also why the GOPe has to increasingly ram their nominees down our throats and why they have no choice but to lie during campaigns.
Power behaves in absolutely predictable ways, and always has and always will. It is simply a subset of human nature.
Which is WHY, to make any real difference in DC, power has to be devolved back to the states and the people themselves. To do that requires that ONLY very principled people are elected, and than held to account according to their principles.
It will ALSO require more than that, and that’s where the states have a huge role to play, along with the people.
I do support an Art. 5 convention for those reasons, but more than that, I support a very militant movement among the states and the people.
Boehner and McConnell didn’t run on the statement that they would be the best people to wait out the progressive wave. They have revealed no plan or guts in office to carry out any promise or secret plan.
What is the Boehner/McConnell plan to replace ObamaCare when and if possible? What is the Republican plan for healthcare? The minimum wage? What is the better idea in written detail for gaining support and for enaction of the Conservative/Constitutional agenda? It isn’t there.
The Dems have it easy. They can make any illogical claim they wish. That is their policy: power at all costs and illogic as needed. The Republicans (to get my support) have a much more difficult job: to analyze and set out a logical, supportable plan for many areas of US life. This includes plans for deregulation and the data and theory which support this.
The Republicans have abdicated this more difficult role, and like the Democrats, merely claim that they have secret plans which will bring about a new nation, should they ever control 80% of the House and Senate, and have their guy as President.
Where is the explanation that a shutdown (restriction of, not crippling) of the government due to budget restrictions is the lesser evil compared to the lawless rule by decree that Obama has pushed through?
Republicans as a group are not effectively opposing the current sweep of Progressive history, so who needs them? If anything, they are supporting the Progressive agenda. The average person sees the Republicans mounting a false opposition and losing. He concludes that the law is on the side of the Democrats, because the Republicans are quietly losing, with no shouting heard.
When the Republicans as the opposition party have no plan, the Democrats are right to claim that the Democratic plan is the best, because the Republicans can’t come up with a shred of planning to oppose it.
We need to start recruiting and organizing shock troops. We need a grand strategy to restore the Constitution. We need to separate ourselves from both parties, in order to better target the RINOs and then the Dhimmis. I suggest we start locally, discussing strategy and tactics over cigars and whiskey. Whatever keeps the signal-to-noise ratio high…
Lemme know when and where…!!!
Hey, you can sign up here:
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/
🙂
You feeling better? Or is that the fever talkin’…???
LOL
I’m back to my normal self…
Thanks.