Let’s Be Serious About Ted Cruz From The Start: He’s Too Extreme And Too Disliked To Win

[n2doc]

By HARRY ENTEN

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s newly minted presidential campaign is the media equivalent of a juicy rib-eye that robbers use to distract a guard dog during a heist. He’ll get a ton of media attention, and he’ll get to spread his message — which may be all that Cruz is after — but Cruz almost certainly has no shot of winning the nomination, according to every indicator that predicts success in presidential primaries.

First, Cruz doesn’t have enough support from party bigwigs. To win the Republican or Democratic nomination, you need the backing of at least some of the party apparatus. At a minimum, your fellow party members shouldn’t hate you. Otherwise, you end up getting the Newt Gingrich 2012 treatment. That is, you get pounced on the moment you’re seen as a threat to win the nomination.

If we’re ever in a world where it looks like Cruz could win the nomination, you’ll very likely see such pouncing. You can read article after article about how Cruz has isolated himself in the Senate. It got so bad that he recently had to apologize to his Republican colleagues.

And the Cruz hatred doesn’t stop at the edges of the Senate cloakroom. Influential party actors dislike him, too. I can’t remember another Republican who united Ann Coulter, Pat Robertson, Jennifer Rubin and Thomas Sowell in opposition.

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http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/lets-be-serious-about-ted-cruz-from-the-start-hes-too-extreme-and-too-disliked-to-win/

[Sheepshank]

1. I almost hope he wins the GOP nomination

but he will be culled by his own, via the Primaries.

OTOH, it may be fun to watch the smackdown he will likely receive in the Primary process. I wonder if he will take this as a learning moment?

[n2doc]

2. "Learn"??? Cruz???

Never! He's just like Palin, their kind never learns, they just double down on the dumb.

[Sheepshank]

3. true...true. WTF was I thinking? n/t

[Adrahil]

4. He won't be able to draw the big GOP money.

Cruz is hoping for an Evangelical/Teahadist upswell. He will get enough money to linger for a quite a while, but not enough to really be a contender, IMO. To compete in the GOP primaries, you really need to draw the big corporate money, and he just can;t do that, IMO. He's the new Rick Santorum.

[emulatorloo]

7. Yep, and Koch Bros already have Scott Walker

[Adrahil]

8. Yup... Walker is perfectly willing to stooge for the monied interests....

with only token nods top the social nuts.

[dhill926]

5. he's supposedly a smart guy...

probably figured out there's a lot of money to be made running for prez.

[Wella]

6. His main purpose is to bring out the base and get them excited...and then bow out to Jeb

whom no one is excited about.

[stevenleser]

9. Dismissive articles like these sound a lot like those that dismissed Reagan. And Reagan wasnt as

smart nor as cunning as Cruz.

I think he is going to win the pug nomination.

[n2doc]

11. I don't think so, based on the reasons given

Cruz isn't running alone. There are several others (cough Walker cough) who can match his appeal with the nut cases but can also sound more 'reasonable'. I think Cruz is this year's Newt, who will get stomped on by the party leaders when it counts.

But he will lead the parade to the right.

[Nye Bevan]

10. Remember when the guy who lied us into war was running against a multiple Purple Heart winner?

There was really no way he could possibly win, right?

[n2doc]

12. The guy who lied was an incumbent

And the war hero let others smear his service without an effective counterattack.

I don't think Cruz survives the primaries

[herding cats]

13. I didn't thing Bush had a chance of winning in 2000

He was a blathering idiot who had damaged the state he governed. Yet he went on to become the president, even if under questionable circumstances. It should never have been that close in the first place!

I will never underestimate the stupidity of American voters again.

Having said that, I don't expect the establishment Republicans to let Cruz win the nomination. I sincerely hope I'm correct on this one. I do expect him to gain a cult following of Teahadist who will demand to be placated by whoever the nominee is, though.

[mstinamotorcity2]

14. He is a plant.

He is part of the magic trick. They play it every election.

[forthemiddle]

15. The Republicans said the same thing about Obama in 2008

"Obama is way to radical and left wing to win".
"There is no way America will vote for Barak HUSSEIN Obama"
"He has no experience, he hasn't even completed his first term as Senator"

Now, granted, I don't know how the "party bigwigs" felt about him, so you may have a point there, but without looking at their respective ideologies look at their resumes, and they are eerily similar.

1st term Senator, respected lawyer, young and charismatic, minority. Heck they both even have their own birther controversies.

In 2008 Obama seemingly came out of nowhere to excite the base when conventional wisdom, at that time was that no one could beat Hillary, yet look what happened.

Does anyone else have a twinge of deja vu?

[n2doc]

16. No. Equating Obama with Cruz is insane

Obama had a much more moderate Senate record. He had a much more moderate platform. Cruz has been a firebrand his whole career. Cruz has spent his whole career pissing of the republican establishment. It will come back to haunt him, especially with the large number of other contenders. He has like 3% in the last poll I saw.

[forthemiddle]

17. I specifically said not their ideology

But how people were perceiving them.
I live in a red area of the State, and to hear the voters around here talk about him, you would have assumed he was a communist.
Again look at their resumes and they are eerily similar.

I am not comparing their votes. Believe me, I know Cruz is no Obama.

In the end I am pretty sure it will be Walker, but don't underestimate Cruz.

[Delphinus]

18. I heard

Terry Gross interviewing Jeffrey Toobin this afternoon about Ted Cruz. It was kind of disheartening to hear him speak of Ted Cruz not in an admiring way, but in a way that suggests the left best be aware of what he can do. He said (not word for word) that Cruz is as far from Palin as possible - he can hold a speak cogently for 30-minutes, not need a teleprompter, and can get his point across. He was a great debater at Harvard (if I recall correctly). I don't think we can dismiss Cruz outright.