Ted Cruz wins Republican Leadership Conference Presidential Straw Poll
Texas Tea is pretty strong right now.
Senator Ted Cruz has been on a roll lately and he seems to be picking up steam as he goes.
Conor Finnegan of CNN reported…
Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has won another straw poll, boosting his national profile and elevating his name among potential 2016 presidential contenders.
The firebrand freshman senator and tea party favorite was among a handful of 2016 hopefuls speaking at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans this week.
Cruz finished in first place in the annual conference’s presidential straw poll at 30.33%. Dr. Ben Carson, a Fox News commentator and conservative activist, finished in second with 29.38% while Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, was third with 10.43%.
Fox News host and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Texas Governor Rick Perry rounded out the top five, at 5.06% and 4.90%, respectively…
Cruz’s address was among the most popular. He was interrupted several times by cheers and standing ovations – especially when he told the crowd he was “convinced” the Republican Party would retake control of Congress in the midterm elections this fall.
The influence of Ted Cruz was felt in another Texas election recently.
FOX News Latino reported…
Ted Cruz’s Clout Climbs After Big Tea Party Wins In Texas
In Texas’s GOP primary runoff election this week, there was a winner whose name wasn’t on the ballot – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
Cruz’s influence was prevalent in the runoff primary, where Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Rep. Ralph Hall, at 91 the oldest-ever member of the U.S. House, lost to more conservative candidates.
The only candidate he officially endorsed, conservative Konni Burton, beat former state Rep. Mark Shelton with some 60 percent of the vote in the race for a state Senate seat.
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Comments
My current 2016 choice is Walker/Cruz, with Cruz taking over in 2024.
Palin/Walker with Cruz for AG.
I don’t support Cruz for president in 2016, for two reasons: he has no executive experience, and he was born in Canada. I think he should stay in the senate for another 10 years or so, doing the excellent job he’s doing now, and then he should be appointed to the Supreme Court.
We’ve already seen what happens to a freshman senator turned president.
Agreed. I would like to see a president who actually has had to submit a budget as a Governor or Mayor of a large municipality, not a two year Senator with no executive experience.
A mayor of a sleepy small town who turned it into a bustling business center is even better. I will take the woman who gave us Cruz.
Your vague reference to Sarah Palin should be ignored. Palin didn’t give you Ted Cruz in the U.S. Senate. The voters of Texas did, and you should be singing their praises for choosing such a capable man to replace RINO Kay Bailey Hutchison.
The voters of Texas were not giving us Cruz until Palin went down there. Ted Cruz himself credits his win to her.
Get over your Palinophobia, retire05; after all these years, with the woman’s impressive record of achievement, it shows your bias. Don’t like girls much?
Palin did indeed have relevant executive experience, and I was hoping she’d run in 2012. In fact, in 2008 it was notable that she had more executive experience than 0bama, Biden, and McCain put together.
Cruz doesn’t have this experience.
Sarah Palin is yesterday’s news and her image (fair or not) with the nation according to every conceivable political poll is underneath water. This is not a fantasy football and baseball game. We on the Right tend to fantasize about “dream tickets” which would never get the nomination any way, and if by a miracle did get the nomination would be crushed by the Democrats in the general election. The fact that people are touting Ben Carson (admirable man that he is) for POTUS tells me they are looking for a right-wing version of Barack Obama. We had a pizza guy who was running the last time and the only reason why he got some traction was because he was a black conservative even though he was not even remotely qualified to be president and his standard response to every question both domestic and foreign affairs was “9-9-9”. This is a nation which twice elected Barack Obama and the idea that a tea party hero would sway them over is rather far fetched. Had Mitt Romney been throughout the 2008 campaign the way he was on the night of the first debate on October 3, 2012 (a responsible, capable, articulate, and attractive Eisenhower Republican) he would have won or if he lost it would have been by the narrowest of margins. He did not lose because he was too “liberal” despite what Chairman Rush and Commissar Levin keep claiming. As for 2008 I hate (emphasis on the word ‘HATE’) to agree with Meghan McCain but I do agree when she wrote that her dad could have had Jesus Christ as his running mate and he still would not have won.
Amazing how yesterday’s news is reshaping the political landscape bit by bit, isn’t it?
Who ever gave me a thumbs down, please tell me where I am wrong (in a calm and reasoned manner and not by throwing around snark and insults).
I get “down-twinkles” at conservative sites aplenty, but they never bruise my ego such that I demand an explanation.
BTW, my guess is that it was your own “throwing around snark and insults” that earned you the thumbs down marks.
Excuse me but I did not use snark or demand a freaking thing. I asked politely. Read it again.
He did not lose because he was too “liberal” despite what Chairman Rush and Commissar Levin keep claiming.
Snark and insults. Read your own damn post. Another squishy Establican candidate like what you’re endorsing will all but guarantee a “President Hillary Clinton” in 2017.
And the this sure looks like a “demand”:
Who ever gave me a thumbs down, please tell me where I am wrong
A little self-awareness would do you a world of good.
I didn’t down thumb you, nor do I think you’re all wrong, but I’ll take a stab at it.
CAP: “Sarah Palin is yesterday’s news and her image (fair or not) with the nation according to every conceivable political poll is underneath water. This is not a fantasy football and baseball game.”
I agree to the extent that Palin’s time has passed as far as the WH goes. She’d have to reestablish herself in the US Senate or perhaps in a Cabinet post. Though still very young in presidential terms, she has shown no inclination to make a move.
CAP: “We on the Right tend to fantasize about “dream tickets” which would never get the nomination any way, and if by a miracle did get the nomination would be crushed by the Democrats in the general election.”
Speak for yourself or provide examples. Besides – that’s why they call them dream tickets, as in dream, as in not available in the real world. ‘They on the left’ do the same exact thing. As do Libertarians. It’s not a righties only thing. It’s the political version of an All Star team, and quite harmless.
CAP: “The fact that people are touting Ben Carson (admirable man that he is) for POTUS tells me they are looking for a right-wing version of Barack Obama.”
I could give a shit less what color Carson is. I love how he speaks to conservative goals and how his lifetime record of achievement lends gravitas to what he says. You are basically calling Carson supporters racist with this and on that you are dead wrong.
CAP: “We had a pizza guy who was running the last time and the only reason why he got some traction was because he was a black conservative even though he was not even remotely qualified to be president and his standard response to every question both domestic and foreign affairs was “9-9-9″.”
You again insinuate that the GOP and/or conservatives are inherently racist, choosing candidates based solely on race. You falsely support your premise by mentioning only that Cain worked previously for a pizza corporation, but you ignore the reason he had traction to begin with – his conservative radio show and many public speaking appearances, later augmented by several straw vote victories and debate performances. Allegations of marital infidelity sank his campaign, but the CW was that he was without elective experience, was a bit too conservative for a national election, and that his strength was primarily in the south only.
CAP: “This is a nation which twice elected Barack Obama and the idea that a tea party hero would sway them over is rather far-fetched.”
Are you honestly suggesting that the GOP can only win in 2016 by capturing the Democrat vote? Obama will not be running in 2016. Another identity candidate might – Hilary Clinton – but she carries zero of the Hot New Candidate And He’s Black! crapola. There is no Liberal Jesus on the horizon for the Dems. It is hardly far-fetched to think that a conservative GOP candidate favored by Tea Partiers could win the presidency.
CAP: “Had Mitt Romney been throughout the 2008 campaign the way he was on the night of the first debate on October 3, 2012 (a responsible, capable, articulate, and attractive Eisenhower Republican) he would have won or if he lost it would have been by the narrowest of margins.”
Romney didn’t so much win that debate as much as Obama lost it by going in unprepared and cocky, a mistake corrected in ensuing debates.
CAP: “He did not lose because he was too “liberal” despite what Chairman Rush and Commissar Levin keep claiming.”
Yeah? How’d he do on capturing the conservative base? In 2012 Romney accepted the GOP leadership plan to abandon the conservative base in order to capture the independent middle, believing they’d get the base because the base had nowhere else to go. Bad strategy, didn’t work, Romney lost. Big. Romney is a former Democrat, fer crissake.
CAP: “As for 2008 I hate (emphasis on the word ‘HATE’) to agree with Meghan McCain but I do agree when she wrote that her dad could have had Jesus Christ as his running mate and he still would not have won.”
Agreed, but it’s because McCain ran such a bad campaign. Obama was beatable, but it had to be done early, before the Messiah momentum had built up. McCain ran a ‘win by hitting singles’ campaign. He wasn’t smart enough, built a poor campaign team, looked like a talking corpse onstage, and categorically refused to fight to win, a huge mistake for a guy who’s political claim to fame is as The Maverick.
Romney got 900,000 more votes than McCain din in 2008. It was Obama who lost votes but unfortunately not enough Obama 2008 voters could bring themselves to vote Republican. If after 4 years of neo-Marxist Obama the base stayed home in 2012 then let them leave the party and join Mark Levin’s “Freedom Party”. The problem is that the base does not reflect politically the rest of the USA and comes across not so much conservative but but increasingly reactionary particularly on social issues. I can’t stand Jeb Bush and his mediocre family but he is somewhat right when he says that we come across as anti this and anti that and it totally turns off moderates, young women, and independents. There was a time when Republicans controlled the wealthy suburbs even in states such as New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and California, but not any more. As for racism you inferred that the GOP is racist not me and if any one thinks that the pizza guy or Carson were white that we would be talking about them for POTUS they are dreaming.
The conservative base needs to STFU and STFD. Our opinions are not requested or desired. We know, we’ve heard you and yours for years now. We serfs need to do as we’re told and no back-talk, just vote for who we’re told to vote for.
McCain quit his campaign to rush back to Washington to vote for a bailout of the Wall Street investment banks who, along with their cronies at Fannie Mae and HUD, created the housing bubble, an act that cost him the election even more than his lackluster campaign. Romney looked like a winner after the first Debate, but clearly just phoned it in after that. His pathetic performance, and Paul Ryan’s amazingly wooden VP debate, turned off more moderates than it did conservatives.
Who was the last GOP candidate to carry New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and California? Ronald Wilson Reagan, exactly the sort of conservative Republican you want to get the hell out of the way.
CAP: “Romney got 900,000 more votes than McCain din in 2008. It was Obama who lost votes but unfortunately not enough Obama 2008 voters could bring themselves to vote Republican. If after 4 years of neo-Marxist Obama the base stayed home in 2012 then let them leave the party and join Mark Levin’s “Freedom Party”.”
The entire GOP base did not stay home, nowhere near it, but enough did. This is because the GOP took them for granted believing they’d get enough independents/moderates by nominating Romney that they’d overcome whatever base votes they lost. The conservative base hasn’t left the GOP. The GOP has left the conservative base. They’ve announced full scale war against them this go-round. Good luck with that. The GOP leadership and direction as currently configured can and does changes its ‘principles’ as political needs dictate. They are conservative before elections, moderate to center-left soon after elections. The conservative base considers its principles timeless and immutable. They stand on principle; the GOP on sand.
CAP: “The problem is that the base does not reflect politically the rest of the USA and comes across not so much conservative but but increasingly reactionary particularly on social issues. I can’t stand Jeb Bush and his mediocre family but he is somewhat right when he says that we come across as anti this and anti that and it totally turns off moderates, young women, and independents.”
Well, then. I guess you’ll just have to adjust your core principles to win elections. How’d that work in 2008 and 2012? What you and the GOP need to consider is that perhaps you are misreading what the rest of the USA wants politically. Your record in elections supports this possibility – excluding the 2010 midterms, which those pesky anti-this anti-that Tea Party conservatives won for you.
CAP: “There was a time when Republicans controlled the wealthy suburbs even in states such as New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and California, but not any more. As for racism you inferred that the GOP is racist not me and if any one thinks that the pizza guy or Carson were white that we would be talking about them for POTUS they are dreaming.”
You confuse stating your personal biases with making an argument. You state, but do not support. Why not just post this over and over in every thread: “Anyone who disagrees with me is wrong.” We promise to always hit ‘Like’ and you can stay safe and warm in your GOP shape-shifting bubble.
I do not believe you can say Dole, McCain, either Bush or Romney were conservative so saying that Romney did not loose because he wasn’t conservative enough is a hard to prove. I think a Cruz or Jindal or someone that really is a conservative would have to run to know for sure. I do not think any of these people can win either with “THE ESTABLISHMENT” (RINO) sabotage them every step of the way. I do not see a great deal of difference in either party once they are elected it’s business as usual. PROMISE ANYTHING when elected COMPROMISE PRINCIPLES ONLY after!
Wow these comments seem on the whole off-topic, bickering and depressing, when we should be cheering Ted Cruz, a man with impeccable character and credentials.
LI is not a choir. I agree Cruz is looking awesome. (I say ‘looking’ only because, like I now feel about Cruz, I once thought Rubio looked great and wouldn’t change).
C’mon, HH, you really didn’t know from the get-go that Rubio was rotten meat? He was talking immigration favoring illegals even before he hit the Senate. He was making nice until he got elected then he abandoned the TP that brung him to the dance.
Cruz has shown his colors don’t change or run.
Before he hit the Senate he was dealing with the Florida population and its high Hispanic numbers, of course. This is common among pols, sort of like W talking cowboy in Dallas and Harvard in Boston, expected, understandable.
I don’t recall you or anyone else around here warning of Rubio’s imminent sell out to the GOP establishment *before* it happened, but if you can pull your old posts doing so – they’d be in the archives, I’d gladly apologize.
I meant to add that I don’t believe Cruz will sell out, but my justifiable suspicion of all politicians dictates I blindly believe and follow none of them anymore. But with Cruz, so far so excellent.
One of the great modern political fallacies is that the presidency is more important than the legislature. It isn’t, they’re equal. I want to see the Tea Party more intent on capturing the legislature than the presidency because we’ve lost sight of the legislature’s real power (they’ve fumbled it), and because legislative seats, being local, are harder for the national media to throw to the Democrats.
So, Cruz to stay in the Senate as a leader, and some TP-blessed governor to go for the presidency. Administrative experience is good.
These are not mutually exclusive. I want to see TP go after positions in all three branches of federal government, plus continue our gains in state and local offices.
Yes, but Cruz is doing a great job in the senate, so he should stay there and not run for president.
Beside which, he was born in Canada, and I don’t buy the claims that “natural born citizen” means “citizen at birth”. I never heard such nonsense before 0bama came on the scene. Before then it was always taken to mean born in the USA, and I see no reason to abandon that view. McCain was different because he was born on a US military base, where US law applied and US forces were in control. But as far as I’m concerned George Romney was ineligible for the presidency, and so is Cruz. Even if you don’t agree, why get into the controversy, when we have so many excellent candidates who were born here, such as Walker and Jindal.