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Ted Cruz Tag

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 08, 2016 88 Comments
If you've spent any time on social media, particularly in the politicalsphere, chances are you've encountered an internet troll or two. This election cycle has been er, um... interesting. I never thought I'd long for the days the so-called Paulbots would troll my feeds lecturing me about liberty and the Constitution and Dr. Paul. At least most of those accounts were real. Alas... Not so in 2016. The Trumpbots, or accounts that seem to exist solely to attack those with unfavorable views of The Donald, are a special breed of vicious. I've learned it's best to ignore, block, and move on. Why waste time on people, or bots rather, not interested in positive engagement, I say. I've also suspected there was a concerted effort to derail conversation on social media and to attempt to fluster influencers. It all reeked of some kind of psychological web warfare. Turns out, I might have been right.

Posted by New Neo on April 08, 2016 9 Comments
On the face of it, answering the question as to what happened in the GOP primary in Wisconsin seems like a no-brainer. As Edward Morrissey writes, Trump shot himself in the foot---dissing popular governor Scott Walker, and flubbing abortion questions---and ended up losing by 13 points, 35 to Cruz's 48. To shore up this argument about a Trump reversal in Wisconsin, Morrissey cites a Wisconsin poll from late January and one from late February, the first of which had Trump leading by 6 and the second by 10. So the narrative seems to make sense---that is, until you actually look a bit deeper, when you find that something additional might have been going on.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 08, 2016 134 Comments
I still can't stand even the sound of John Kasich's voice. Now that we have that out of the way, it's pretty clear that the Republican primaries and convention come down to a choice between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Speculation otherwise -- including conspiracy theories -- does not seem to live in the real world, according to Charlie Cook:
Whenev­er I hear Re­pub­lic­ans wax on about the pos­sib­il­ity of nom­in­at­ing someone oth­er than Don­ald Trump or Ted Cruz — talk­ing up John Kasich, Paul Ry­an, Scott Walk­er, Mitt Rom­ney, or some oth­er less po­lar­iz­ing fig­ure — it makes me won­der: Ex­actly how would that hap­pen? We all have mem­or­ized two num­bers. The first is 1,237, the num­ber of del­eg­ates needed to win a ma­jor­ity at the GOP con­ven­tion. The second is 40, as in Rule 40, re­quir­ing that a can­did­ate win primar­ies or caucuses in eight states to have his name placed in nom­in­a­tion. (It was ad­ded to the party rules in 2012, pushed by al­lies of Mitt Rom­ney to stifle Ron Paul.)

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 06, 2016 190 Comments
Remember when Ted Cruz (or Marco Rubio, or Jeb Bush, or any other Republican) lost a primary and accused his opponent of criminal election activity, and then hid from the media on election night? Neither do I. You get out there on election night, congratulate the other side and give a speech to rally for the next battle. Or at least you don't act like a two-year old brat who just had a half-finished candy bar taken away. Last night Donald Trump acted like the two-year old. For the first time in his adult life he was speechless and camera-shy after getting crushed in the Wisconsin primary. Wisconsin Republican Primary 2016 Results No graceful concession speeches there. Instead Trump issued a vitriolic, bizarre statement (emphasis added):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 05, 2016 98 Comments
All eyes are on Wisconsin. Before I get to today's primary, let's take a look back at one of my favorite political periods in the history of the world - the defeat of the Recall against Governor Scott Walker after over a year of protests against the public sector union collective bargaining reform bill. It was what I called Wisconsin's Long, Strange Trip, linking to our exhaustive coverage of all the crazy:
Police insurrections.  Palace guards.  Catch a Senator contests.  Doctors behaving badly.  Massive national solidarity protests which weren’t.  Identity theft as political theater.  Shark jumping.  Legislators who run away to other states.  Busbang bangs.  Protesters locking their heads to metal railings and pretending to walk like Egyptians.  Beer attacks.  Canoe flotillas.  (alleged) Judicial chokeholds.  Tears falling on Che Guevara t-shirts at midnight.  Endless recalls.  And recounts.  Communications Directors making threats.   Judges who think they are legislators (well, I’ll grant you that one is common).  V-K Day.  Hole-y warriors.  Cities namedSpeculation and Conjecture.  And the funniest blog headline so far:
First They Came For The Right To Retire After 30 Years On Full Salary With COLAs
When Walker defeated the Recall late in the evening of June 5, 2012, it was Oh what a night. That was a time when the Legal Insurrection community was more united and cohesive, and thousands of us celebrated the win with the inaugural launch of website fireworks and John Phillip Sousa music:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 04, 2016 151 Comments
If Donald Trump gets 1237 delegates prior to the Republican convention, it's lights out. But that is looking less and less likely unless Trump scores a major upset in Wisconsin on Tuesday, at the Colorado convention on April 9 (where the delegates technically are unbound but the sides are fighting to get their people selected as in North Dakota), and wins big in New York on April 19. Cruz has little chance himself of getting to 1237 prior to the convention, so his strategy is focused on the second ballot. That strategy, as it is playing out in real time, has two components: Make sure only Trump and Cruz are the choices facing the convention, and make sure there are large defections on the second ballot of delegates pledged to Trump on the first ballot.

Strategy, Part 1: Keep it Trump or Cruz

When it comes to keeping it to two, Trump and Cruz are on the same page. They are planning to fight to keep Kasich from being put in nomination, much less someone not currently in the race. The NY Times reports:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 04, 2016 91 Comments
Ted Cruz has been the subject of a story by The National Enquirer alleging he had 5 mistresses. Trump supporters on social media singled out, based on barely pixelated images in the Enquirer, Amanda Carpenter for particular viciousness. She denied the story as did another woman, Trump's spokesperson Katrina Pierson. Cruz called the story garbage, but never directly committed as to whether he EVER had an affair. Cruz was interviewed by Megyn Kelly in a town hall to air tonight. The following clip was just posted as a tease for the show tonight:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 03, 2016 64 Comments
At one level, the North Dakota delegate selection today was not a big deal, because the delegates are "unbound" even on the first convention ballot. The delegates were not even required to openly state their candidate preferences as the Bismark Tribune reported:
Delegates at the North Dakota Republican Party convention elected 25 unbound delegates to be sent to the Republican’s national convention following a debate and failed request providing candidates the choice to declare their preference for president prior to the vote.

Posted by Taryn O'Neill on March 30, 2016 29 Comments
On Tuesday morning, Ted Cruz kicked off a Women for Cruz coalition in the liberal stronghold of Madison, Wisconsin. The senator was joined by his wife Heidi, mother Eleanor, and former presidential candidate Carly Fiorina for a conversation on issues considered important to women. In a change of pace from prior events, Cruz gave a shortened stump speech and focused on the meaning of the term "women's issue," itself:
"This event this morning is a celebration of strong women. One of the most frustrating things about the Democrats is the Democrats love to pigeonhole women. Put 'em in a little box [and] you have a set of issues that are women's issues. Well, listen. I have news for the Democrat party: Women are not a special interest. Women are a majority of the United States of America and every issue is a women's issue."
Cruz went on to say that his campaign is about three issues, those being jobs, freedom, and security. Despite the Democrat party's effort to deem only issues advancing the progressive cause as valid women's issues, Cruz made a point to emphasize that these three crucial issues are inherently women's issues just as they are men's.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 29, 2016 54 Comments
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker appeared on the Charlie Sykes radio show in Wisconsin and endorsed ... Ted Cruz. It was a very strong endorsement for Cruz, not an anti-Trump endorsement. Walker said he was "all in" for Cruz. https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/714817364588634112 Scott Walker Statement Endorsing Ted Cruz

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on March 28, 2016 86 Comments
One of Senator Cruz's latest campaign ads sounds a little bit familiar. Worried, released late last week, has no mention of the Washington Cartel, DC insiders, or Obamacare -- Cruz's hallmark talking points. Instead, his campaign has opted for a soft embrace of a few Trumpisms.

Posted by Miriam Elman on March 27, 2016 8 Comments
The Republican candidates made a lot of pledges to the record-breaking pro-Israel crowd at last week’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference in Washington, D.C. Among them was the promise that they’ll move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. So, if he becomes President, will Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or John Kasich move the American Embassy to Israel’s capital city? Don’t count on it.

Promises, promises

Moving the embassy would break with over two decades of bipartisan White House policy to circumvent the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, a law which mandates its relocation. [caption id="attachment_128948" align="alignnone" width="600"]U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv Beach Satellite [U.S. Embassy location on Tel Aviv Beach][/caption]

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 26, 2016 117 Comments
Remember when Donald Trump threatened to "spill the beans" on Heidi Cruz? Yesterday Katrina Pierson, Trump's campaign spokesman, "spilled the beans" in an interview. Ironically, as Katrina was spilling the beans on Heidi, Trump SUPPORTERS were spreading wild rumors about Katrina and Ted Cruz (which she denies). Katrina tweeted yesterday about the rumors with an apparent lack of self awareness that the rumors were published by a magazine that has endorsed Trump, and were being spread by supporters of Trump: https://twitter.com/KatrinaPierson/status/713383676931772416

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 25, 2016 254 Comments
By now you likely have heard of The Thing. I've waited for some public comment from people allegedly involved in The Thing before posting anything about it, even though a couple of our commenters have done so in the comment section to other posts, and it's going wild on Twitter. The thing is about The Thing is that I don't want to spread what might be false rumors, on the other hand, The Thing is now a thing on TV and elsewhere, so it can't be totally avoided. In the age of Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and many others, I'm hesitant to say The Thing is not a thing because even the National Enquirer has gotten someTHING right in the past. The National Enquirer, though, carefully couched its reporting as there being rumors into which investigators are looking, not actually having evidence. It may have evidence, and it may just be doing a slow baited roll out getting people to commit publicly before revealing the evidence. Or it may have nothing but rumors, and is hoping the publicity draws out witnesses and other evidence.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on March 24, 2016 96 Comments
Yet another attempt to end Senator Cruz's White House bid was shut down in courts Thursday afternoon. A New York appellate court upheld a lower court's decision to dismiss a case involving Senator Cruz's birthright. Reuters reports:
The New York Appellate Division agreed with the lower court ruling that the suit should be thrown out because it missed the deadline for filing an objection to Cruz's appearance on the April 19 ballot. Lawyers for Cruz successfully argued that the objectors had filed their petition nearly three weeks late.
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