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Ted Cruz Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 12, 2016 166 Comments
It's Friday afternoon. This should get the holiday weekend off to a nice, quiet start. Donald Trump, angry that negative ads are being run against him, is threatening to sue to keep Ted Cruz out of the race based on the claim that Cruz is not a "natural born Citizen" and not eligible. (h/t Hot Air) My view is here. I *thank* the people who have emailed me to call me a traitor and fraud and hack because of my view on the subject. Here is Trump's Friday Twitter Trumpertantrum: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/698231571594276866?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Trump also is retweeting some some hoorahs for his threat:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 11, 2016 12 Comments
We're pleased to present what will be a reoccurring election feature here at Legal Insurrection -- Today in Political Attack Ads. As long as the mud is flying, you'll find it here. Political attack ads are as old and colorful as America. To our cultural credit, negative ads are far less personal these days. "John Adams is a hideous hermaphroditicly character with neither the force or firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman," claimed Thomas Jefferson (one of my personal favorites). "Do you want to see your dwelling in flames?! Female chastity violated?! Children writhing on a pike!! Well that's what will happen if you vote for Thomas Jefferson!" warned John Adams. Back in 2010, Reason put together a video chronicling some of the best campaign rhetoric from the election of 1800.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 10, 2016 148 Comments
An ad put out by the Ted Cruz campaign attacking Donald Trump is brilliant. The production quality is high, it's funny, and it goes to a core public perception of Trump as a candidate -- that he is not to be treated as a serious person. Trump has the highest national negatives of all candidates of either party, and does poorly in head-to-head matches not only with Ted Cruz but also with Hillary and Bernie. The ad plays on this perception by having children with a Trump Action Figure doll laugh as they recite Trumps policy positions and friendliness with people like Nancy Pelosi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvPh9I_jwBo The end, in which the children smash a house while shouting 'eminent domain' is quite effective. Core Trump supporters are not the target of the ad. They will not be shaken.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on February 09, 2016 52 Comments
Despite studies that clearly demonstrate that women underperform and cause their entire unit to underperform in combat training, the left still seems enamored of the idea that women should be forced upon the military in these combat positions.  Indeed, now all branches of the military, including special ops, are required to accept women. The next obvious step is selective service.  If men are required by federal law to register for selective service at age eighteen, why not all women?  This is going to be a problem for the femisogynist left who really only wanted that whole equality thing to go so far.  Now, they are faced with the logical consequences of their politically correct nonsense. Army and Marine Corps chiefs have already stated that it's time to register women for selective service, so this opens a new can of worms for the progressive left.  While I couldn't find push back from progressives yet, it will come. Now, though, they are focusing on Ted Cruz who rightly argues that it is "nuts" to draft women into the military because this now includes combat positions. The Wall Street Journal reports:
Ted Cruz said Sunday a proposal to include women in the Selective Service registration was a product of out of control political correctness and warned against putting a woman soldier near a dangerous “psychopath” in a combat situation.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on February 05, 2016 45 Comments
Marco Rubio may have received the third-most votes in Iowa this week, but he won big. The Iowa caucus was Monday.  Even as votes were being counted, news emerged confirming long-standing rumor that South Carolina Senator Tim Scott would endorse Rubio. Scott is the first African-American Senator from South Carolina since Reconstruction and his endorsement could swing the state.  According to the Washington Times:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 03, 2016 56 Comments
Jimmy Carter has joined with much of the Republican establishment in expressing preference for Donald Trump over Ted Cruz because Trump will make deals. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:
Turning to the “almost completely unpredictable” race for the Republican nomination, Carter said he had a “feeling” that Trump’s chances ultimately would “fade away. “When people actually get ready to put on a ballot, ‘This is the person I want to lead me for the next four or eight years, I think they’ll have a little different opinion,’” Carter said. Still, better him than Ted Cruz. If he had to choose between Cruz and Trump for the Republican nomination, Carter chuckled, “I think I would choose Trump, which may surprise some of you.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 03, 2016 79 Comments
In all the news noise over the Iowa caucuses, a decision by the Illinois Board of Elections passed almost entirely under the radar. There was much hoopla when two voters filed a challenge to Ted Cruz appearing on the ballot because Cruz allegedly was not a "natural born Citizen" and ineligible. (My research and conclusions on the subject are here.) I have not been able to find the actual decision, but Huffington Post reports:
Two objectors, Lawrence Joyce and William Graham, had challenged Cruz's presidential bid with the board, contending that his name should not appear on the March 15 ballot because his candidacy did not comply with Article II of the Constitution. Adopting the recommendations of a hearing officer who considered the matter last week, the board of elections on Monday rejected both objections, ruled Cruz eligible and ordered that his name be certified for the election.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 02, 2016 66 Comments
The death of the Tea Party movement has been widely reported, by people who reported that death before the 2010 surge election in which the movement played a critical role, and every few months thereafter for several years. It is true that the Tea Party monied-groups have mostly disappeared. To me, that's a good thing because some of them merely fed off the movement. I've always distinguished between the movement and the groups. I'm proud that Legal Insurrection was part of the movement from the start, and equally glad that we steered clear of the groups. But the movement itself has not died. This chart from Gallup through last fall tracks Tea Party support trends. Both support and opposition have fallen. A majority have no opinion or are neutral. http://www.gallup.com/poll/147635/tea-party-movement.aspx

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 29, 2016 134 Comments
There is lots of buzz that Marco Rubio is inching up in Iowa. There also seems to be a loose consensus that Rubio had the better of the debate last night. So Ted Cruz is turning his attention to Rubio with a negative ad campaign that previously was focused on Trump. The NY Times reports:
Senator Ted Cruz, scrambling to put down a growing threat in Iowa from Senator Marco Rubio, is shifting nearly all of his negative advertising from Donald J. Trump to Mr. Rubio for the final three days of the caucuses. Mr. Cruz intends to direct his firepower at his Senate colleague after days of seeing Mr. Rubio inch up both in public polling and his own private surveys, according to two advisers to Mr. Cruz who spoke on the condition of anonymity. After leading in the polls in Iowa for much of the last month, Mr. Cruz has slipped into second behind Mr. Trump in most public surveys.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 27, 2016 91 Comments
Ted Cruz is intelligent, articulate, and well-prepared to defend and protect the Constitution as the next president of the United States.  He entered the national spotlight during his contentious 2012 run for the Senate, but it's worth taking a look at his resume because it highlights long-standing and staunch support of conservative principles.

Conservative Credentials: Pre-Senate Life and Career

Prior to winning that senate seat with conservative grassroots and TEA Party support and becoming the first Hispanic to serve as a senator from Texas, Cruz was also the first Hispanic—and the longest-serving person in Texas history—to hold the office of Solicitor General of Texas. Cruz joined the George W. Bush campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser and advised then-candidate and Governor Bush on a wide range of policy and legal matters, including civil justice, criminal justice, constitutional law, immigration, and government reform. During the Bush administration, Cruz served as associate deputy attorney general at the DOJ and as a policy adviser on the Federal Trade Commission.  While at the FTC, Cruz was an avid free-market crusader—an extension of his high school participation in the Houston-based Free Market Education Foundation, a program Cruz entered at the age of 13.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 25, 2016 19 Comments
I'm not sure if this was meant to be an oppo-dump or just funny, but it's certainly the latter. A video posted to a YouTube account called "Young Ted Cruz" Saturday shows an 18-year-old Sen. Cruz sitting next to a fountain at Second Baptist School in Houston, Texas talking about his life goals. “Aspirations? Is that like sweat on my butt?” joked Cruz. Teen Cruz had big hopes and dreams like one day starring in a "teen tit film." But if that didn't work out, he'd be content to "take over the world, world domination, you know -- rule everything."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 22, 2016 164 Comments
Speaking to a crowd in Las Vegas Thursday night, Donald Trump said he'd be part of the establishment if elected; a bit odd considering he's spent the majority of his campaign portraying himself as the ultimate political outsider. But standard rules don't apply this election cycle. Apparently. The abbreviated version of Trump's remarks:

Posted by Jonathan Levin on January 22, 2016 50 Comments
The Republican emeritus leadership seems to be breaking for Donald Trump over Ted Cruz as the lesser of two evils.  They reason that Trump is less extreme, less likely to cause collateral damage to Republicans in Congressional and state races, and more electable. They're also probably wrong, at least about the electability question.  Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com writes:
It’s hard to say exactly how well (or poorly) Trump might fare as the Republican nominee. Partisanship is strong enough in the U.S. that even some of his most ardent detractors in the GOP would come around to support him were he the Republican candidate. Trump has some cunning political instincts, and might not hesitate to shift back to the center if he won the GOP nomination. A recession or a terror attack later this year could work in his favor. But Trump would start at a disadvantage: Most Americans just really don’t like the guy.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2016 72 Comments
Anyone who a year ago picked Donald Trump and Ted Cruz to be the two leading Republican candidates heading into the Iowa Caucuses either (i) is a liar, or (ii) should invest heavily in the lottery because they are beyond lucky. Certainly, the powers that be in the Republican Party were not expecting it. Here's what a Fox News poll looked like in January 2015: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2015/01/29/fox-news-poll-voters-believe-romney-clinton-remain-top-picks-for-2016-believe/ The pollster didn't even bother to ask about Trump. And Cruz was in low single digits. Now Trump is on top in the national polls and Cruz is in second place. In Iowa, three polls released today show Cruz leading, a dead heat, and Trump leading.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on January 20, 2016 189 Comments
Bob Dole, who has endorsed Jeb Bush, has weighed in on the budding Ted Cruz v. Donald Trump contest in the early GOP primaries, and backed Trump in the strongest terms.  According to the New York Times, Dole warned of "cataclysmic,” and “wholesale losses” if Cruz is nominated.

Dole's logic is viewing the Trump/Cruz contest explicitly in terms of what is better for the Republican Party establishment:

“I question his allegiance to the party,” Mr. Dole said of Mr. Cruz. “I don’t know how often you’ve heard him say the word ‘Republican’ — not very often.” Instead, Mr. Cruz uses the word “conservative,” Mr. Dole said, before offering up a different word for Mr. Cruz: “extremist.” . . .

The remarks by Mr. Dole reflect wider unease with Mr. Cruz among members of the Republican establishment, but few leading members of the party have been as candid and cutting.

Dole added that Cruz has falsely “convinced the Iowa voters that he’s kind of a mainstream conservative.”

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 19, 2016 79 Comments
As Donald Trump ramps up his attacks on Ted Cruz, the Washington Post is reporting that "The Republican establishment really, really doesn't like Ted Cruz."  This premise is nothing new to those of us who have been following Ted Cruz's career in the Senate and his presidential campaign, and to many serves as a feather in Cruz's cap.  The vitriol against him, though, is becoming quite pronounced . . . and not just from Trump. WaPo writes:
There's an assumption among casual consumers of politics that establishment Republicans loathe Donald Trump. Not really true.  Yes, they worry about what Trump might do downballot to the GOP if he is the nominee. But most view him with some mix of puzzlement and fascination. The Republican establishment saves its actual hatred for one man and one man only: Ted Cruz.
The evidence WaPo trots out is Iowa governor Terry "ethanol" Branstad.
Witness Terry Branstad, the four-term governor of Iowa and, without question, the face of the Republican establishment in the state. On Tuesday, he told reporters that he wants to see Cruz beaten in the Iowa caucuses in 13 days -- a remarkable admission by a sitting incumbent of such long standing.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 19, 2016 150 Comments
Seems like only yesterday I was watching Sarah Palin stump for Ted Cruz in the Texas Senate Runoff race. My how times have changed. Before a huge crowd gathered in the smoldering July heat of The Woodlands, Texas, alongside then Senator Jim DeMint, Palin said:
But the good news is, there is nothing wrong with America that a good ol' fashioned election can't fix. Ted [Cruz] is a proven, common sense, Constitutional conservative. He's a fighter and he will bring new leadership to the United States Senate. He will shrink government, he will be putting it back on the side of the people and he will defend the United States Constitution. Ted Cruz represents the positive change that we need.
In addition to Gov. Palin, Cruz also garnered endorsements from Senator Rand Paul, Senator Pat Toomey, Senator Jim DeMint, RedState, and Sean Hannity in 2012.

Posted by New Neo on January 19, 2016 94 Comments
Professor Jacobson has opined on the question of whether Ted Cruz qualifies to be president as a "natural born citizen." The short answer is: he definitely does. However, as Professor Jacobson also indicated, that hasn't stopped Trump from attempting to foster doubts in voters’ minds about it. You can see the results in the increased amount of chatter about the issue---which is likely to have been exactly what Trump wanted when he put forward his oh-so-helpful suggestion that Ted Cruz could and should settle the "natural born citizen" question by going to federal court and seeking a declaratory judgment on the matter. So, why doesn't Cruz do what Trump has suggested, and put it to rest? The reason is that it is almost certain that Cruz couldn't get a court to rule on the issue. J. Christian Adams, who was in the Justice Department under George W. Bush, explains why:
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