Globe has gaveled the 2020 Republican primary campaign to begin, in what is a real below-the-belt move!
"Cruz throws a wrench in Trump’s convention" by Joshua Miller and Tracy Jan Globe Staff July 21, 2016
CLEVELAND — Ted Cruz became the most unpopular Republican in Cleveland Thursday, a familiar role for the Texas senator known for his thumb-in-your-eye style, as he defended his convention snub of Donald Trump and refused to get in line like some “servile puppy dog.’’
The cascade of boos that began Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention when Cruz avoided endorsing Trump by name continued throughout the city Thursday as delegates huddling at their state breakfast meetings were furious that Cruz defiantly refused to back down.
They accused him of hijacking the convention to boost his own political fortunes instead of joining Republican politicans who have united to defeat Hillary Clinton in November.
That's a charged word.
As Cruz’s continued refusal to endorse dominated the media coverage, and brought Trump’s unusual convention even further off script, the Texas senator even took fire from his own Lone Star state delegation.
Cruz, though, said Trump went too far during the primary campaign when he maligned the appearance of Cruz’s wife, Heidi, and appeared to accuse Cruz’s father of involvement in President Kennedy’s assassination.
“That pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi, that I’m going to nonetheless come, like a servile puppy dog, and say, ‘Thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father,’ ’’ Cruz said.
Cruz’s rancor appeared to be fueled by a blend of political and personal grievance after he lost a bitter primary battle against Trump, as well as by a desire to distance himself from Trump in preparation for another possible presidential campaign in 2020.
I'm still stuck in 2016, silly me.
News of Cruz’s snub dominated convention news for close to 24 hours and eclipsed any discussion of Mike Pence, the vice presidential nominee, who introduced himself to Americans Wednesday night.
As noticed here yesterday.
Forgot all about Christie, too.
Immigration? Jobs? Trade? National defense? Clinton’s e-mail server? All of those subjects fell into a news black hole.
Who is to blame for that?
The sharp focus on party divisions followed a wave of negative coverage earlier in the week over Melania Trump’s speech Monday, fueling controversy for a full day Tuesday, before finally admitting triggering another distracting flurry of attention Wednesday.
Let that go, Globe.
For his part, Cruz sent out a fund-raising appeal hours after his speech.
He's claiming the party is “ignoring the will of the people.”
I hope his hotel room is padded.
Rick Tyler, former Cruz campaign spokesman, at an after-party across the street from the Quicken Loans Arena, said “Cruz outfoxed the foxes. In the end, this will be remembered as a very smart move that Ted Cruz stood on principle as opposed to just believing in winning. Donald Trump can’t seem to manage the message coming out of his own campaign. It’s been four days of communications disasters.’’
He's drunk!
Cruz, who used his reputation as the most hated politician in Washington by Democrats and Republicans alike to his advantage in the primaries, is widely seen as readying another presidential bid for 2020, should Trump lose to Clinton in November.
It was not clear at all that Cruz would influence many Republicans to shun Trump. Evangelical Christians were key supporters of Cruz’s primary campaign — a coalition Trump must win over, especially in the swing states of Ohio, Florida, and Virginia, if he’s to defeat Clinton. A June poll by the Pew Research Center shows that 94 percent of white evangelical Republicans now back the New York billionaire, compared with just 44 percent in April.
Ralph Reed, a Georgia Republican who is founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, said that while he’s disappointed in Cruz’s lack of endorsement at the convention, his guidance to voters to choose a leader who shares their values is ultimately “going to lead them to Donald Trump.”
David Lane, a Christian activist from California whose group, American Renewal Project, mobilizes pastors to run for political office and who considers Cruz a friend, said he was nevertheless stunned by Cruz’s speech.
“It was disastrous,” Lane said. “Cruz would have been better putting on his game face and backing Donald Trump.”
Some Republicans predicted Cruz’s speech would come to haunt him down the road.
The Globe was calling him the reincarnation of Reagan yesterday!
“It looked like Ted Cruz was wearing an adult diaper, because all I saw was a crybaby,” said Deanna Frankowski, an Alabama alternate delegate, from the convention floor as Cruz left the stage.
Reached on Thursday, she was succinct about any future support for Cruz should he make a second play for the White House....
She said “never.”
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Related: How Ted Cruz hurt his 2020 chances
He never had a chance.
Look who else is getting out of town:
"Trump vows to be a voice for ‘forgotten’ Americans" by Matt Viser Globe Staff July 22, 2016
CLEVELAND — Donald Trump, in the most important speech of his presidential campaign, Thursday night outlined a dark view of the current state of the country, blaming the political class for not standing up for “forgotten” average Americans — and making the case that he alone holds the solution to middle-class ills.
“The forgotten men and women of our country —and they are forgotten. But they won’t be forgotten for long. These are the people who work hard but no longer have a voice,” Trump said. “I am your voice!”
Whoever wrote that did well. It's a good appeal. I saw him say it (I watched about half of it in and out), he looked right into the camera and pointed, but what I mostly saw was the same old, same old, someone promising he will do X,Y, and Z, and then they don't -- or can't -- do it.
Trump’s remarks concluded a four-day convention that began with accusations that his wife plagiarized a Michelle Obama speech, and then continued with Senator Ted Cruz’s refusal to endorse the nominee in a 20-minute prime-time speech.
There goes the Globe again, but at least it was up front this time.
Trump did not outline new policies and still refrained from adding specifics on how he would accomplish his goals. But his speech was perhaps the most coherent case for his candidacy, one that distilled some of the erratic rhetoric of his campaign rallies into a clearer argument.
That wasn't the impression I got. It was mostly his stump speech over again. He did an okay job, and turning sideways for the profile while the crowd cheered was ballsy. Presidential profile, right?
The crowd, which just one night before was tense over Cruz’s extraordinary speech, was boisterous and united behind Trump.
While the arena on all other nights had hundreds of empty seats, on Thursday night they were filled with a crowd chanting over and over “USA! USA! USA!”
Those chants scare me. Mindless jingoism.
Trump called himself the “law and order candidate” and said he would protect the little guy against the powerful elites who he said control Clinton like a “puppet.” He also asserted that he could unite a divided country in a way that President Obama has not.
That's where the false flag psyops have backfired on the Democrats and Obama.
“The irresponsible rhetoric of our president, who has used the pulpit of the presidency to divide us by race and color, has made America a more dangerous environment than, frankly, I have ever seen,” Trump said.
As soon as he is inaugurated, he proclaimed, “Safety will be restored.”
Woah!
The speech was Trump’s biggest opportunity to recast his campaign in a way that sheds some of his harsh rhetoric and transitions into something that is more palatable for a general electorate. It had a more presidential tone as he sought to reassure voters that he’s responsible enough to assume the role of leader of the free world.
Throughout the speech, Democrats issued a stream of press releases accusing Trump of lying and bending the truth. On the subject of a crime increase, the Clinton campaign called it a “scare tactic” and cited fact-checkers who have scored Trump’s claims false. A Democratic group backing Clinton called the address “depressing and divisive.’’
He read from a teleprompter, as he has done on several other occasions, and spoke forcefully. The address lasted an hour and 15 minutes.
But he never mentioned Cruz and didn’t include a reference to forcing Mexico to pay for a wall along the US southern border.
But he did bring that up and said he would do it during the last 20 minutes or so.
He did not repeat GOP activists’ call to put Clinton in jail, something that was a common refrain throughout the convention as the crowd again and again chanted, “Lock her up!”
Instead, Trump ripped into Clinton by outlining a starkly different worldview and attempting to cast her as part of a cabal of special interests [and] ridiculed her decisions as secretary of state, saying she left the Middle East in turmoil and paved the way for the Iran nuclear deal, and even speculated that Obama might have regretted appointing her to the job.
“The problems we face now — poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad — will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them in the first place,” he continued. “A change in leadership is required to produce a change in these outcomes.”
Can't argue with that.
Trump twice made direct appeals to supporters of Clinton’s rival for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders.
Trump did not explicitly blame President George W. Bush, but he criticized American foreign policy that led to “15 years of wars.”
“Iraq is in chaos,” Trump said. “Iran is on the path to nuclear weapons. Syria is engulfed in a civil war and a refugee crisis that now threatens the West. After 15 years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before.”
Iran isn't making nuclear weapons, and Syria is not a civil war. It's a covert attempt at regime change.
Further taking his party toward a more isolationist foreign policy — one that opposes free trade and rejects military intervention — he said that he would focus instead on the United States. He painted a dim view of the current state of the country, rattling off crime statistics, low wages, and a dangerous world.
Said Israel is our best friend.
In one indication of how Trump is changing the tenor of the Republican Party, he made a direct appeal to the gay and lesbian community.
“As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology,” he said, while making reference to the recent shootings at a gay nightclub in Orlando.
He'll stand up to the Israeli Lobby?
He paused after the crowd erupted in applause.
“I have to say, as a Republican, it is so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said,” Trump told the audience.
About an hour before Trump spoke, Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist who cofounded eBay, received a loud round of applause after declaring he was gay.
“I am proud to be gay,” he said. “I am proud to be a Republican. But most of all I am proud to be an American.”
Do you know who he backed last time?
Not long afterward, Trump’s oldest daughter, Ivanka, introduced her father.
“Tonight,” she said, “he is the people’s nominee.”
Globe says the speech had echoes of Richard Nixon.
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Also see:
Tricky Trump’s economics
The day Trump trashed US diplomacy
Trump tones down his act
America’s ‘rendezvous with destiny’
Donald Trump is the future — like it or not
First-time Mass. delegate soaks in front-row seat at RNC
A look back:
Trump's Road to the Republican Nomination
Cleveland Trump Stop
Clinton Lynching in Cleveland
And you can get her whimper of a death rattle on DVD.
Also see: VCR Ate CIA Videotapes
Won't be able to go swimming anymore.
At Baker’s home, Pokémon Go
Now the invasion of privacy is serious!
Men in 2015 Pokemon convention plot get 2-year sentences
Look at those pathetic losers!
