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Thursday, November 12, 2015

The Battle Royale Between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz

Just to recap, my theory of the GOP race is very simple.

1. The only four candidates with a real shot at the nomination are Rubio, Cruz. Carson, or Trump.

The rest are pretenders or zombies. They're dead even if the mainstream pundits still insist on talking about them as if they're still alive.

The only partial exception to that might be Jeb, who even if a longshot could still potentially do some real damage to Rubio.

2. My horse in this race is also simple: Anyone but Rubio. I'll take any of the other three.

There has been a sense for awhile that a Rubio-Cruz tango is coming-an all Cuban Tea Party throwdown.

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/cruz-vs-rubio-the-overture/

So obviously I'm for Ted Cruz. I mean if I had money I''d consider paying for Ted Cruz ads. LOL. Here is Cruz's opening salvo:

"Now Cruz has unleashed what may be his most aggressive and sustained assault on Rubio yet, and the topic is indeed immigration. Cruz’s target: Rubio’s heretical support for comprehensive immigration reform, for which the Florida Senator has been trying to atone for years. The New York Times’ Jeremy Peters caught up with Cruz last night:

"Mr. Cruz was asked Wednesday night by a reporter in Kingston N.H., if there was still a distinction between his position on immigration and Mr. Rubio’s."

“It is not complicated,” Mr. Cruz said, then paused before adding, “that on the seminal fight over amnesty in Congress, the Gang of Eight bill that was the brainchild of Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama, that would have granted amnesty to 12 million people here illegally, that I stood with the American people and led the fight to defeat it in the United States Congress.”

Mr. Cruz said: “In my view, if Republicans nominate for president a candidate who supports amnesty, we will have given up one of the major distinctions with Hillary Clinton and we will lose the general election. That is a path to losing.

“And part of the reason the debate last night was so productive is you started to see clear, meaningful policy distinctions, not just between what people say on the campaign trail. Talk’s cheap. But between their records. When the fight was being fought, where did you stand? That speaks volumes about who you are and where you will stand in the future. And we’re entering the phase now in the presidential race where primary voters are starting to examine the records of the candidates.”

"Cruz’s broadside contains two key ingredients. The first is the suggestion that Rubio’s support for Obama/Schumer comprehensive reform shows that his current posture on immigration is not to be trusted. Rubio has retreated to the position that the border must be fully secured before we can even discuss legalization. And Rubio has also sought to reassure conservatives with a careful straddle: he doesn’t support Donald Trump’s call for deportation of the 11 million, but neither does he align himself fully with Jeb Bush’s and John Kasich’s forceful moral and practical criticism of Trump’s vow of mass removal. However, conservatives are not convinced: they want him to fully rule out any future “amnesty,” which (by their lights) he has not done yet. Cruz may also press Rubio to say whether he’d immediately end Obama’s executive action protecting the DREAMers from deportation. It’s a point on which Rubio has fudged, and it’s a legitimate question."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/11/12/morning-plum-ted-cruz-rips-into-marco-rubio-and-its-game-on/

I agree on one thing with Cruz. On immigration, Rubio is not to be trusted.

"This theory is diametrically opposed to the prevailing theory among many GOP strategists (including, at one point, the RNC), which holds that to win in future national elections, the GOP must embrace meaningful immigration reform that reorients the party as more culturally welcoming and inclusive, broadening its demographic appeal. It’s hard to say where Rubio now stands on this spectrum — the hedging in his immigration pronouncements seems designed to keep that vague. But Rubio strategists are reportedly convincedthat his ability to maintain mainstream appeal will be key to his success, which suggests he hopes to reserve room to pivot back to a more pro-reform posture later, if he wins the nomination. Cruz may challenge Rubio in ways designed to foreclose that possibility."

"Cruz’s prescription for 2016 seems dangerously wrong-headed. But it now looks as if this argument over competing theories of the case may be hashed out in a more public way."

Speak for yourself Greg Sargent. You say they're dangerous but dangerous for who? For the GOP-yes. But as the most dangerous thing for Latino immigrants is any Republican winning, Cruz is a breath of fresh air.

 While Rubio would pivot back in a general election, the danger is that some might wrongly trust that pivot. But when you see the way he's repudiated his own support of immigration reform, isn't it clear that he is as Kevin McCarthy would say 'untrstubale' on the matter of immigration?
Then there is abortion where he is a nightmare. 
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/11/rubios-rise-is-very-bad-news-for.html
Sen. Marco Rubio's (R-FL) presidential campaign brushed off repeated, yet subtle, accusations of being a moderate from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) after Tuesday's Republican debate in Milwaukee.

Rubio's campaign manager Terry Sullivan told Bloomberg Politics that calling the freshman senator a moderate was "ridiculous."

“It's crazy," Sullivan told Bloomberg. "Absolutely, positively most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Marco Rubio is the conservative's conservative."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ted-cruz-marco-rubio-moderate

The conservative's conservative. But if Rubio is the nominee will this be remembered?

This is what Hillary's Super PACs should be pushing right now. That very clip of Sullivan calling him the consevative's conservative should be replayed on tv and radio, often.





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