How Ted Cruz might win a general election
April 11, 2016
167 Comments
on
Here's one plausible scenario for Cruz's prospects in a general election. It's worth reading the whole thing, but here's an excerpt:
...[T]he assumption is that Cruz cannot improve his image among the broader electorate, but that's hard to know for sure, because he's never had to do it. While opinions on Clinton are deeply entrenched after her decades in the public spotlight, Cruz isn't as universally known and has more of an opening to get a second look. Cruz would enter the general election campaign with a reputation as an extremist, which the Clinton campaign would do everything to play up. But the risk of such a strategy comes if Cruz is able to defy such a caricature during the election among voters getting to know him for the first time. To quote Shakespeare's Prince Hal: "By so much shall I falsify men's hopes/And like bright metal on a sullen ground/My reformation, glittering o'er my fault/Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes/Than that which hath no foil to set it off."In other words, Cruz is much less of a known commodity to most voters, and he is therefore more likely to be able to improve his image if he can just soften up just a bit.