I'm going to cruise through this as fast as I can:
"Cruz launches presidential bid, becoming first candidate; Texas senator expected to court conservatives" by Steve Peoples, Associated Press March 23, 2015
WASHINGTON — Senator Ted Cruz said in a Twitter message that he is running for president.
The Texas Republican released a tweet early Monday confirming what had long been an expected White House run from the Tea Party favorite. Cruz became the first major candidate for president. A rush of more than a dozen White House hopefuls into the 2016 campaign is expected in the next few weeks.
There are two Tea Parties. The true patriots, and the corporate co-option referred to in my pre$$.
In an early preview of his campaign message, he said in a Web video that ‘‘it is going to take a new generation of courageous conservatives to make America great again.’’
Here we go with all the vapid vapors of AmeriKan political exceptionalism and all that.
Cruz will discuss his candidacy during a morning speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., choosing to begin his campaign at the Christian college founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell rather than his home state of Texas or the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. It is a fitting setting for Cruz, a 44-year-old whose entry into the 2016 campaign drew cheers Sunday among fellow conservatives.
I suppose so, and I will be cruising past his name on the ballot.
“The official Republican pool of candidates will take a quantum leap forward with his announcement tomorrow,” Amy Kremer, the former head of the Tea Party Express, said Sunday. Cruz’s announcement, she said, “will excite the base in a way we haven’t seen in years.”
I suppose that is supposed to be me. Do I look excited?
Elected for the first time just three years ago, when he defeated an establishment figure in Texas politics with decades of experience in office, Cruz has hinted openly for more than a year that he wants to move down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Senate and into the White House.
His plans were confirmed Sunday by one of his political strategists, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to preclude the announcement.
While Cruz is the first Republican to declare his candidacy, he is all but certain to be followed by several big names in the GOP, including former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and two Senate colleagues, Kentucky’s Rand Paul and Florida’s Marco Rubio.
Cruz’s move puts him into pole position among those whose strategy to win the nomination counts on courting the party’s most conservative voters, who hold an outsized influence in the Republican nominating process.
So I'm told, as the public is the one getting the pole you-know-where.
“Cruz is going to make it tough for all of the candidates who are fighting to emerge as the champion of the antiestablishment wing of the party,” GOP strategist Kevin Madden said. “That is starting to look like quite a scrum where lots of candidates will be throwing some sharp elbows.”
I've seen this movie before. Twice.
After his election to the Senate in 2012, the former Texas solicitor general quickly established himself as an uncompromising conservative willing to take on Democrats and Republicans alike.
He won praise from Tea Party activists in 2013 for leading the GOP’s push to partially shut the federal government during an unsuccessful bid to block money for President Obama’s health care law.
That shutdown actually cost more when you factor in the retroactive pay and borrowing costs associated with keeping this hulking carcass of a government going.
In December, Cruz defied party leaders to force a vote on opposing Obama’s executive actions on immigration. The strategy failed and led several of his Republican colleagues to call Cruz out.
How you liking the show?
That's one area where I wish Romney had won: it would have been fun to see him squirm when he would have had to bring forward immigration reform. Would have been fun watching the rabid right rip him to shreds.
Let's face it, folks. After six+ years of Obummer, you know they are carrying forward a preconceived plan despite the talk of change. It's hard getting down, I know, but that's they way it is.
“You should have an end goal in sight if you’re going to do these types of things, and I don’t see an end goal other than irritating a lot of people,” said Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican.
Such admonitions mean little to Cruz, who wins over crowds of like-minded conservative voters with his broadsides against Obama, Congress, and the federal government.
One of the nation’s top college debaters while a student at Princeton University, Cruz continues to be a leading voice for the health law’s repeal and promises to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and scrap the Department of Education if elected president.
Yup. Talk, talk, talk.
Last weekend in New Hampshire, one voter gave Cruz a blank check and told him to write it for whatever amount he needed.
?!!!!?
“He’s awfully good at making promises that he knows the GOP can’t keep and pushing for unachievable goals, but he seems very popular with [the] right wing,” veteran Republican strategist John Feehery said.
Right, left, means nothing unless you add corporatist after it. It's a false paradigm. The true fight now is freedom or fa$ci$m. Where does your candidate stand?
“Cruz is a lot smarter than the typical darling of the right, and that makes him more dangerous to guys like Scott Walker and Rand Paul.”
He will used to siphon off votes from Paul -- as if it really matters -- so the cover of rigged election machinery can be maintained with a a plausible narrative.
The son of an American mother and Cuban-born father, Cruz would be the nation’s first Hispanic president.
Where was he born because I've heard.... Romney?
To get there, Cruz knows he needs to reach out beyond his base. He is set to release a book this summer that he said would reflect themes of his White House campaign and said in a recent interview he will use it to counter the “caricatures” of the right as “stupid,” “evil,” or “crazy.”
That's what they are! Not candidates! Caricatures seeking higher office!
“The image created in the mainstream media does not comply with the facts,” he said.
No kidding?
--more--"
"Ted Cruz kicks off 2016 bid with appeal to the right" by Matt Viser, Globe Staff March 23, 2015
WASHINGTON — Senator Ted Cruz, one of the most polarizing figures in American politics who has built a career on obstructing the political establishment, jump-started the 2016 presidential campaign Monday by becoming the first major candidate to formally announce he is running for the White House.
They just proved his point.
During a 30-minute speech before 10,000 cheering evangelical Christian students at Liberty University in Virginia, the Texas Republican sought to rally conservatives behind him under the banner of “reigniting the promise of America.”
“It is a time for truth; it is a time for liberty,” he said. “It is a time to reclaim the Constitution of the United States.”
Jesus Christie! Another truth-telling politician!
But his candidacy will test the limits of a politician who is proudly disruptive and has often sought to focus on divisions, rather than the uniting rhetoric that national candidates tend to employ.
Well, we know this Globe reporter won't be voting for him. Division is one of their missions. that criticism is in no way an endorsement of Cruz or his positions.
A major challenge for Cruz, who is among the highest-profile figures to emerge from the Tea Party movement, will be translating that activist fervor into a viable national campaign.
Cruz vowed Monday to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and forbid same-sex marriage. He said he would repeal the Affordable Care Act and fight against the Common Core national education standards.
Cruz delivered an overtly Christian message, roaming the stage like a megachurch pastor with a wireless microphone, describing the spiritual journey he and his family have taken.
Click.
“Roughly half of born-again Christians aren’t voting. They’re staying home,” Cruz said. “Imagine instead millions of people of faith all across America coming out to the polls and voting our values.”
I try not to, but when I do.... scary.
By announcing early, and skipping the exploratory phase that many candidates use to test the waters, Cruz is staking an early claim in the competition for conservative support and attempting to establish himself as the chief alternative to more establishment Republican candidates such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin.
His announcement could increase pressure on several likely conservative competitors to declare their intensions. Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who shares many of Cruz’s philosophies but has tried to broaden his appeal, is expected to announce next month that he is running. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is also expected to announce his candidacy next month.
You can scroll up and down this page to see them, and I will have a wrap-up at top before moving on.
Cruz has made repeated visits to early-voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire.
His heavy emphasis on religion — and an announcement at the Lynchburg, Va.-based campus founded by pastor Jerry Falwell — might help Cruz in the Iowa caucuses, in which evangelical Christians tend to hold great sway.
Then he wins Iowa and New Hampshire knocks him down. Might do well in the South, though.
“Somebody has got to be in the forefront and taking a stand and stopping this madness. That’s where a lot of people appreciate what he’s done in the Senate,” said Steve Scheffler, an influential Republican National Committee member from Iowa.
I did my best, and I guess my best wasn't good enough.
“He’s got the courage of his convictions. He’s not afraid to take a stand,” he added. “The left comes after him; some people in his own party may not be very happy with him. But . . . he’s not going to back off when he thinks he’s right.”
Look, a principled politician running for president, yup.
Early polls have Cruz far behind. In Iowa, he is polling at 4 percent and trailing eight other candidates.
Really?
Cruz, 44, was born in Canada but because his mother is American, many legal scholars believe he would meet the constitutional requirement as a “natural-born citizen” to run for president.
Oh, they did bring that up?
(For the record, I'm with Rivero on that one; you take the bits of truth where you find them. No one has a monopoly on truth, and as a great person once said "The truth is the truth, even if you are a minority of one.")
Cruz grew up mostly in the Houston area before attending college at Princeton, where he developed a reputation as a quick-witted national debate champion.
Then those upcoming primary "debates" should help him.
He attended Harvard Law School, where classmates have described him as a strident conservative, wearing cowboy boots and poking liberals on campus with glee.
Aside from the politics, that shows a propensity for bullying. I don't want that kind of president. Have had enough of them.
Btw, I criticize and call out liberals here, but it is hardly with glee. It's with the realization that Repugs stab you in the chest; Dems put their arm around you and glad-hand as your friend while plunging in the knife. Just ask all the unions that had to give back health and pension money while administration got phat.
After embarking on several prestigious clerkships, including one under Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Cruz became the Texas solicitor general and argued nine times in front of the Supreme Court.
Then the government has to recuse itself in arguments if he wins presidency?
In his 2012 Senate race, he challenged the Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst of Texas, who, as a longtime Republican officeholder, had the backing of many in the state, including Governor Rick Perry. Then, as now, Cruz was the underdog. But with the backing of Tea Party activists, he easily won.
Perry did a dance for him?
But since Cruz arrived in Washington, even GOP critics have said he cares more about theatrics than substance.
That's the campaign! The image of illusion!
In 2013, he staged a 21-hour speech and pushed for a government shutdown unless Democrats yielded on their defense of President Obama’s health care law.
“I intend to speak in support of defunding Obamacare until I am no longer able to stand,” he said.
So what happened? You drop?
He has often been a thorn in the side of Republican congressional leaders, stoking the anger of conservative House Republicans and urging them to defy Speaker John Boehner. And he has tried to upend the strategies of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and pushed the party in a more confrontational direction. In an effort that ultimately failed but generated a large amount of publicity, he recently tried to withhold funding for Department of Homeland Security unless Obama rescinded executive orders on immigration.
Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, mocked Cruz on Monday.
“Shutting down the federal government and reading Dr. Seuss on the Senate floor are the marks of a carnival barker, not the leader of the free world,” King, who has also been considering a presidential bid, said in a statement.
This country was founded on no Kings.
During his campaign, Cruz will probably criticize Bush and others for positions that conservatives think are too moderate.
Whoop-dee-do.
Cruz hinted at those Monday, saying he would vociferously oppose the Common Core education standards that Bush has made one of his highest priorities in recent years.
“There are people who wonder if faith is real,” Cruz said. “I can tell you, in my family there’s not a second of doubt.”
“I believe God isn’t done with America yet,” he added.
Then heaven help us all.
--more--"
Oh, about that Obummercare:
"Cruz says he’ll use insurance exchange" Associated Press March 25, 2015
WASHINGTON — Senator Ted Cruz said Tuesday that he is signing up his family for health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act, a law the Republican presidential candidate has vowed to repeal should he win the White House.
Didn't take long for the hypocrite to be exposed. Hallelujah!
Cruz formally launched his presidential campaign on Monday, and his wife, Heidi Cruz, began an unpaid leave of absence from her job as a managing director in the Houston office of Goldman Sachs. That meant the family would lose access to health insurance through her job, triggering a need for the Cruz family to find a new policy.
Oh, TED! Wife works for Goldman Sachs! Well, the Wall Street won't be threatened by a Cruz presidency. They must be doing God's work!
The first-term senator from Texas said he is looking at options available on a health insurance exchange, or a clearinghouse of policies available to Americans who don’t receive coverage through their employers. The Democrats’ health care law created the exchange system.
Members of Congress and their staff not otherwise covered, such as via a spouse’s health care insurance, are required to enroll in a plan sold through an exchange under an amendment to the law crafted by Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa.
OR pay a tax penalty.
Ted? Little protest? Go without like so many? Buddy?
--more--"
So where is he on the wars and all?
On to N.H.!
"Recent polling has shown that Republican voters here are deeply divided on key social issues. A Suffolk University poll of likely New Hampshire primary voters released last week showed that while Republicans are united on fiscal issues and foreign policy concerns, they are more supportive of abortion rights and gay marriage — which the Legislature here approved in 2009 — than Republicans across the country. The same New Hampshire survey showed Texas Senator Ted Cruz with just 5 percent support among Republicans, behind former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who is expected to have the support of the party’s establishment, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and even New York businessman Donald Trump, though that was within the margin of error. In this way, Cruz’s primary battle is with Rick Santorum, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, and Scott Walker. “My sense is that Cruz is sort of the flavor of the week,” MacDonald said. “Rand Paul will announce soon and have his moment, and it will be a few months before this all gets sorted out.”
Looks like a loser to me.
I've got to get cruising and do some errands; however, I will run back and finish up this series today.
