Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Cruz only exists as a candidate at this point due to the gross incompetence of the GOP Establishment. When they embarked on the "Never Trump" campaign, the only reasonable choices were Kasich, or a drafted outsider (aside from Paul Ryan, who's not stupid enough to accept). Instead, the Establishment decided to get behind Cruz, a person who has never had any realistic path to the White House. It's madness. You don't need to know anything about politics-- hell, you could have lived in cave on Mars and just arrived on Earth last year - to understand that Ted Cruz Will Never Be The President of the United States. (Never, ever, under any circumstances. Utterly unelectable. Not only beaten brutally by Hillary, but beaten by almost any breathing being who runs against him.)

Of course, this is assuming the Establishment doesn't have another plan in place to rid itself of Cruz and Trump in one shot. I could see the party trying to give the nomination to Cruz just to see him get killed by Hillary, which may hurt his chances of Senate re-election, eliminating two assholes the GOP detests in one shot. But that's probably giving it way too much credit. That it's been played like a fiddle so far by Trump suggests it's just a clueless party of old men who can't believe all of their power is slipping away, and don't know how to form a proper counter-strategy.

This is the problem with country club types. Few are very creative.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Thank you, NY.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I think you misunderestimate Cruz. He will prove himself to have zombie-like powers (though he will think of it more as a resurrection that confirms the Jesus-like qualities he always believed himself to have).

Re: Independents
 

The diverse playing field is why we got Obama (more of an outsider) than Clinton (more of an insider) last time and why Sanders didn't sputter and fail early this time.

Big markets give you the views of many people, but are media, not retail politics, sports. Money plays a bigger role. Network media trumps more local media.

You put the candidates through every test and every different perspective. You want to win Alabama? Learn about court houses, barber shops and beauty salons, and make sure you can talk about the VA and job losses. You want to win Texas? Maneuver media markets, local political machines, and multi-lingual campaigning. Lots of talk about oil and immigration. Iowa? Talk agricultural policy, got to state fairs. Massachusetts? Better be ready to talk to people about gay rights and healthcare and talk sports.

Along the way, they have to deal with big markets in primaries, with retail politics in caucuses, with party stalwarts in closed primaries, with hard-core independents in places like Maine and NH.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Texans only vote for the R, not the name. Cruz would have to be beaten in the primary to be kicked out of the Senate. If he's on the ballot, he'll be in the Senate.

Our current Attorney General is under two indictments and one civil charge by the SEC, and he was under investigation at the time of the election. No. One. Cared. because of the R next to his name. The Ag Commissioner is under investigation for misuse of state funds (he went to Mississippi to compete in a rodeo) and for looking into the "Jesus Shot" (google, I can't bear to explain it), and the first thing he did in office was to un-ban deep fryers in schools. And he'll win again, because he has an R next to his name.

The Democrats in the this state are an unorganized, ineffective mess, and they've all but given up on state politics, focusing instead on the cities. In part, that's because local races don't have Rs and Ds on the ballot, so voters have to actually do a little more research to figure out who they hate.

Ted Cruz is a tea party guy here, and the Tea Party guys have tended to do rather well. Until the Rs get that faction under control, he's not going anywhere.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Hope springs eternal for special snowflakes like Ted. That such a clown ever considered himself a serious candidate is a testament to the power of ego, lack of self-awareness, and delusional thinking.

I understand a guy like Bernie thinking, in the face of a crowd of 30 thousand people, and raising $40mil a month, "Hey, maybe I can actually win this thing." But Cruz? Who did he think would be receptive to him? The only reason he got anywhere was because he set up a great ground crew and, being a manipulative prick, gamed the system where he could, and... big "and" here: Because the anti-Trump crowd gave him a boost.

Had Trump never succeeded, Cruz's campaign would have been dead months ago. He exists by the grace of Donald and those who desperately seek anyone, however vile and hopeless in general he might be, to hobble Trump.

Cruz has never been viable, and only persists in soiling our TV screens at this late date as the Never Trump Movement's useful idiot. I'm sure some on the Establishment think he has a path to the White House, but they're the dimmest of the dim. No one with brains thinks or has ever thought this person had a serious chance in a national election. It's laughable to even consider it.

And yet, despite his intelligence, I'll bet Cruz thinks there's some angle - some litany of perfectly executed connivances - by which he can maneuver himself to the Presidency. Always the sneak, always the lawyer, the gamer, the "liar." Trump's nickname nails the man in full. Here's to this being the last of Ted in national politics.

Re: Independents
 

None of this has anything to do with caucus vs. closed primary vs. open primary vs. whatever. You're just saying you have to win state-by-state, which is true regardless of whether they all have the same primary system or not.

Which brings me back to the only value of different systems in different states being that it makes more work for the candidates. I guess if I want to be really generous, I could say it creates more strategic choices, but I don't really think that's true.

Anyway, I don't think it was the diversity of process that got us an Obama nomination, but rather that through outstanding organization, he got the nomination despite a byzantine process designed to keep people like him (relative neophytes) from doing so.

But I guess you're right that the existence of anti-democratic caucuses is a big factor that keeping Bernie alive. Is that a good thing?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

God works in mysterious ways.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

This is a shame. Because he is a uniquely amazing collection of all the worst ideas, behaviors, and personality aspects of politicians. I find the man fascinating because it's rare to find someone so thoroughly repulsive in almost every conceivable element of his being.

Prior to your post, I had assumed he ascended to his current position by luck of the tea party wave, and cunning and intelligence. This was a hopeful narrative because, inevitably, the tea party will peter out, and cunning and intelligence can only overcome staggering personality defects for so long. That he might be with us for more Senate terms because crowds of tribe minds pull all the "R" levers dependably is dispiriting. I want to think the legions of us who look at this man and feel a Natural Selection-like urge to purge him from any position of leadership have enough allies in TX, or anywhere anything like Cruz might emerge, to snuff the careers of these horrible sorts after a single term.

Re: Independents
 

The caucuses are also what gave us Obama. So YMMV.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Well, in part that is true. He got in because the redistricting litigation in 2012 pushed back the primary from March to almost June. David Dewhurst was the sort of knighted establishment heir to the seat, and he came in first in the primary, but with less than half the vote. But Cruz had another two months to raise money and build momentum for the runoff, and he pulled it off in late July. That particular election was sort of billed as "establishment" vs. "tea party", and it wasn't even close. I'm pretty sure that if the primary had been in March, as originally scheduled, Dewhurst would have won without the need for a runoff.

Since then, almost every establishment Republican in Texas has a tea party challenger ready to pounce in a primary. Which doesn't necessarily mean that the challenger will win, but it does mean that there is very little compromise or wandering towards the middle or god forbid left. There are 11 Democrats in the state senate that prevent the state from not having any checks at all (though our tea party Lt. Guv has threatened to get rid of the 2/3 quorum rule). Otherwise the state is totally controlled by Republicans and Tea Party Republicans.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

SEC Chick, it is a foul truth that Sebastian speaks, and I know his words must sting right now, but I believe in my heart that this Cruz man is not right for you. Checks he signs with love and kisses later come back signed "Insufficient Funds." Going with a Funkadelic tale of heartbreak for today's Daily Dose, "Can you Get to That":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rrOdcnFbAY

Re: Independents
 

We used to have primaries AND caucuses. (Just the Democrats, I have no idea what Republicans do.) The primaries allocated 75% of the delegates and the caucuses allocated the rest. In 2008, I went to both. Our precinct got a certain number of delegates to the district convention based off of how we voted in the caucus. There was a meeting of all of the Obama supporters who voted in my district afterwards, and I was selected at to go to the district convention to caucus for Obama and figure out who would be going to the state level. That was AWESOME. There were about 5000 people in a gym at TCU about 80/20 Obama/Clinton. Our precinct ultimately voted for Obama and then we watched Democrats fighting for the rest of the day. The only Clinton speaker was Shelia Jackson-Lee, and she kept speaking for 20 minutes straight under continuous boos. Clinton won the primary, but Obama won the caucus in Texas that year.

The DNC told us last year that we had to pick just one. It wasn't nearly as fun to just go to a polling place and vote.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I just read a thing on FB from upworthy about how they are changing the 5/10/20 dollar bills. What was surprising was the fact that the most used bills are the $1 and $100 bills, $20 coming in third. There has got to be some major uses of $100s that are outside my experiences.

Re: Independents
 

Sorta. Clinton won the all-important caucuses in American Samoa. :P