Atlantic - "Inside the Conservative Bubble, It Looks Like Ted Cruz Is Winning Big"

[TomCADem]

The crazy thing is that Ted Cruz won a straw poll at the Value Voters' summit, which just underscores how radical the Republican base has become.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/inside-the-conservative-bubble-it-looks-like-ted-cruz-is-winning-big/280532/

Friday was a difficult day to wake up Republican in America. With the government shutdown entering its 11th day, a poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News had definitively quashed any hopes that people might be taking the GOP’s side in the standoff. Americans blamed Republicans over the president by a 20-point margin for the shutdown; the GOP’s rating was at its lowest point in the pollster’s history. Shutting down the government to demand that the president’s unpopular health-care law be stopped had somehow made both President Obama and his health-care legislation more popular.

You might expect this news to put a damper on a roomful of conservatives. In official Washington, Republicans were in a full-on panic; commentators called the party suicidal, and lawmakers began scurrying toward a resolution to the standoff. But Senator Ted Cruz of Texas—the man whose adamant resolve and 21-hour filibuster had helped bring on the stalemate, earning him the loathing of many of his colleagues—was in a defiant mood.

Taking the stage at the Values Voter Summit, an annual gathering of religious-right activists, Cruz announced that they were winning the fight. “I am here this morning with a word of encouragement and exhortation!” Cruz said. A woman in the front row shouted a passage from Romans: “If God is with you, who can be against you?” “I receive that blessing,” Cruz said somberly.

The conventional wisdom that the battle to stop the health-care law cannot be won, to Cruz, was merely a “trick” perpetrated by the deceitful left. “Look, the Democrats are feeling the heat,” he said. Cruz has been huddling with the lower chamber’s most conservative members, urging them to pressure Speaker John Boehner, prompting some to declare him a sort of shadow speaker. “In my view, the House of Representatives needs to keep doing what it’s been doing, which is standing strong,” he said.

[TheMastersNemesis]

1. These Right Wing Fundamentalists Want To Replace Constitution W/Bible.

Cruz is their Messiah.

[flamingdem]

22. I think they want power at all costs, it's not really about religion

it's about Repukes in charge and benefitting themselves and crushing others not in their clan.

[Wounded Bear]

24. Religion has pretty much always been about power and control....

historically speaking, of course. IMHO the Catholic Church is the prototypical multinational corporation. Sure, 'they do a lot of good stuff' but they also have billions in assets protected from government taxation and/or control. The current Pope has made some interesting moves, but he's an aberration.

[HooptieWagon]

2. This is the "legitimate rape" and vaginal probe crowd.

They took a shellacking in the 2012 GE. I can't see big corporate donors lining up behind unreliable candidates with only regional appeal.

[JaneyVee]

3. These fuckers are attempting anarchy and using Bronze Age fairy tales to justify it.

THIS COUNTRY MAY BE FUCKED. WE ARE UP AGAINST SATANISTS.

[jberryhill]

12. It seems that way

They take every Christian principle and turn it upside down.

[stevenleser]

4. Exactly right. Conservative Pundits are claiming this is hurting Obama and Democrats as much as it

is hurting Republicans. They are using the one outlier poll that shows Obama not doing well and claiming that is the truth, just like they did with the election. If you only watch/listen to/read conservative media, you think this isn't going so badly for Republicans.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Yes, Cruz has the left on a run

Thanks for the thread, TomCADem.

[BlueStreak]

8. We all believe what we want to believe

This is one of the greatest songs ever, and those lyrics prove true over and over.

I don't think any of us is immune to gigantic blind spots. I know I am not.

And Cruz is a much bigger fool than most, so his blind spot is nearly 360 degrees.

As far as Democrats are concerned, there can be no more useful fool than Ted Cruz. If he is the 2016 candidate, we win by the same margin we beat Goldwater. And if he is not the candidate, he will hurt the candidate so badly that it will be very difficult for the GOP to win if we run a good candidate with a good campaign.

[summerschild]

6. Nothing's changed. These are the same people who cheered when Rick Perry was asked how many people

he had executed in Texas; the same ones who booed the gay soldier in Afghanistan, and shouted "Let him die!" to Ron Paul about the man with no health insurance during the 2012 Republican primaries. These are the same mean, angry, nasty haters they were.

[BlueStreak]

7. Cruz has the same odds of winning the Presidency as Palin or Bachmann

I doubt he can win the GOP nomination because the party bosses will prevent that, just as they did when selecting Romney. But all those crazies definitely hurt Romney severely. And 2016 is starting to look a whole lot like 2012. Cruz is going to force the eventual nominee to take some insane positions during the primaries.

Going into 2012, the conventional wisdom was that you could pander to the far right base in the primaries and then do the etch-a-sketch thing. Well, that conventional wisdom is wrong. You cannot get away with that in a world of Youtube where there are 100 cameras at every event and it is so easy to stitch together an opposition biography using things the candidate has famously said throughout the primary campaign. In all the post-election commentary, I really haven't heard anybody comment on how this fundamental law of politics has been repealed.

The GOP is headed down that same road again, and we should do everything possible to encourage Senator Cruz.

[PSPS]

9. "the president’s unpopular health-care law"

Shutting down the government to demand that the president’s unpopular health-care law be stopped had somehow made both President Obama and his health-care legislation more popular.

Why does the media keep referring to the ACA as "unpopular?" I know people have problems with it in one aspect or another, including myself. But every poll I've seen shows that most people either want it retained as it is or want it retained "with changes," meaning making it better, not scrapping it. When the media uses the term, it implies that a majority of americans want it to be repealed which I don't think is true. The mad rush to enroll on 10/1 pretty much belies the "unpopular" tag, does it not?

[Agnosticsherbet]

10. When Republicans lost in 2008 and 2012 they blamed not being conservative

enough.

Maybe if the nominate this idiot they might finally get a clue.

[Gman]

11. We don't want 'em to get a clue

It makes it harder to beat 'em. Let 'em tear each other up.

[Chan790]

15. Doubtful.

They remind me of a footnote in a novel...it was something about suicide shrews; the more absurd their strategy becomes, the more they cling to it as the only answer they'll contemplate.

The only way we're getting out of this is that the more radical they get, the more they lose from the periphery. Eventually, the last 4400 or so of them are going to march into mid-summer Death Valley to await the miracle of the anointing of the Cruz Messiah at base-camp Galt by Objectivist Jesus. Without government intervention, they're going to die out there.

What I have not yet ascertained is whether it's moral in their worldview to save them from themselves.

[Volaris]

18. and THAT is the quintessential question that every self-professed "liberal" MUST answer...

The conclusion I came to is as follows: I don't want innocent people killed, suffering or dying. What I DO want are the heads of every evil, greedy fucker who LED THEM INTO THE GOD-DAMNED DESERT in the first place on spikes outside the New York Times building.

The people who follow Cruz into that desert don't know any better, and therefore, probably deserve our our compassion and assistance. But for Cruz himself? Sometimes I think our justice system is cloaked in FAR too many niceties...

[Agnosticsherbet]

19. The niceties of the law is what separates us from Tyrannies and Ted Cruz

If we abandon the niceties of law than we are just a left wing radical version of Ted Cruz's right wing crusader dominionist radicals and we cease to be liberals, either self-professed or otherwise.

[Katashi_itto]

20. Keep that in mind if this lasts past default and we end up economically somewhere between

Somalia and Portugal, because we decided to be "nice"

[Agnosticsherbet]

21. I stand with the rule of law and against tyranny whether it be Ted Cruz's dominionist.

tyranny or a left wing vengeance for the masses tyranny.

My family will have zero income if the government stays closed, and after the furloughs forced on us and no pay raises for four years, come December 31st we will be explaining to our creditors that the Republican Party is convinced that not paying our debts will cause no problem at all and that should go to Congress for an explanation. I've a feeling that will mean exactly dick.

So the consequences are constantly on my mind.

[Katashi_itto]

23. I hope your claim to be "ethical" helps when staring at your empty pantry.

[grasswire]

13. oh the comments section on that is hilarious

I'm laughing hard. One wingnut, many critics of him!

[Skittles]

14. they thought Romney was going to win

[BluegrassStateBlues]

16. Real potential for a cult here.

Hopefully he leads them down to some remote area of Latin America and gives them some fucking poison.

[MFrohike]

17. He might be

The GOP has completely abdicated the very idea of trying to govern. They don't care if the government ever functions again. Winning for them is everyone else trying to be responsible and actually do the job of government. My concern is that they intend to hold out as long as possible, which is not something that we can really tolerate for long. If the president plays by their rules and negotiates, it seems unlikely that he can win.*

*Absent other factors, of course. Boner switching course or a huge effort on the part of corporate America to support Republicans who break from the tea party line would be examples.