Tag Archives: Ted Cruz

State news

How does Cruz embrace Trump … and vice versa?

I cannot get past the news that Donald John Trump plans to stage a h-u-u-u-u-ge campaign rally on behalf of a guy he used to call Lyin’ Ted.

Trump says he is coming to Texas to campaign for Ted Cruz, the Republican U.S. senator who once challenged Trump for the GOP presidential nomination.

The campaign got really nasty, man.

Trump hung the Lyin’ Ted nickname on Cruz. Then he insulted Heidi Cruz, the senator’s wife. Oh, and then the future president thought to link the senator’s father to possible complicity in President Kennedy’s murder.

The insult to Mrs. Cruz and the idiotic “fake news” lie about the elder Cruz was too much for the senator. He called Trump “amoral,” a “narcissist,” a “pathological liar” with no sense of decency.

Now he welcomes the president to Texas to campaign for him as he seeks to fend off a challenge from Democratic contender Beto O’Rourke?

Give me a break.

Trump already has tweeted disparaging comments about Cruz’s service to Texas in the Senate. Cruz’s statements about Trump stand on their own.

So these two men now intend to persuade us that all is well with them both? That they didn’t really mean all those nasty things they said about each other? That they have buried the hatchet … and not in each other’s back?

I still intend to be in the crowd at the Trump rally if it occurs anywhere near us in the Metroplex.

No, I won’t cheer the Liar in Chief.

2016 election, Donald Trump

Speaking of endorsements …

Here it comes. Donald Trump has announced his total support for Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. He’s planning a major campaign rally for the Cruz Missile, who is fighting for re-election against Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke.

Then we have Twitter posts such as the one that appeared in February 2016, when Trump and Cruz were rivals for the GOP presidential nomination.

Cruz is “another all talk, no action pol,” Trump said at the time.

Now he is giving Cruz his blessing?

This is the kind of flip-flopping that gives politics a bad name. In my humble view.

Oh sure, Democrats do it, too. But you are welcome to spare me the “both-siderism” argument that emerges in these partisan political discussions.

We’re talking in this instance about a particular contest that now includes the president of the United States of America, the head of state, head of government, commander in chief, leader of the Free World … blah, blah, blah.

The public domain is full of this kind of thing that will require some explaining. I do not expect the president to come clean on whether he was speaking the truth then, or whether he has re-defined the truth to fit the moment.

State news

POTUS plans big rally for the Cruz Missile

I’m all giddy.

Donald J. Trump has posted a Twitter message that reads the following:

Isn’t that cool? The president is coming to Texas to campaign for Ted Cruz, the Republican incumbent who’s seeking to fend off an apparently burgeoning challenge from Democratic U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke.

Trump says he is “picking the biggest stadium in Texas we can find.” Let me think. I believe that would be the Cowboys’ crib in Arlington, which is only about 30 miles or so from where I live in Collin County.

This means I’ll get to attend a Donald Trump rally. It means — if it works out — that I’ll get to sit in a crowd of screaming maniacs.

Take my word for this: I won’t join them in whoopin’, hollerin’ and howlin’ when Trump spouts untruths. Oh, no. That’s not for me.

I’ll plan to be there because from what I understand these rallies are worlds unto themselves. They reportedly thrive in what can be called a parallel universe that functions right next to the real world.

Hey, I’ve made no secret of my desire to see Beto O’Rourke knock the Cruz Missile out of the sky.

To be sure, Trump hasn’t yet disclosed where this rally will occur. The state has plenty of large venues. The University of Texas football stadium in Austin also is possible, but Austin ain’t exactly Trump Country or, for that matter, Cruz Country.

The Cowboys stadium in Tarrant County, though, makes more sense.

It also gives me a chance to attend a Donald Trump, shake my head in disgust — and then declare that Beto O’Rourke would do a better job representing rank-and-file Texans than the man Trump has offered his “complete and total Endorsement.”

Oh, and such a rally would give the O’Rourke plenty of grist to remind Texans that Cruz once called Trump a “pathological liar,” someone who is “amoral” and a true-blue “narcissist.”

Is the senator a man of conviction — or is he a man of convenience?

national news, political news, State news

This Senate race is getting white hot and nasty

BUTTE, Mont. — We’re stopped at our third Montana RV park and are enjoying some local TV … including some pretty nasty political ads being fired back and forth between Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and his Republican opponent, state auditor Matt Rosendale.

My wife and I have been out of Texas for about two weeks. We’ve parked our RV in West Yellowstone and Missoula, Mont. I’m wondering if we’re going to see such vitriol flying soon from the Senate campaigns of Beto O’Rourke and Ted Cruz.

The Republican is accusing Tester — a guy I’ve always considered to be a Second Amendment-loving moderate Democrat — of being a closet clone of House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Bernie “Democratic Socialist” Sanders.

Rosendale has tied himself to Donald John Trump. He calls himself a “Trump conservative,” which if I lived in Montana would be enough all by itself for me to support Tester.

Most of the negativity is coming from Rosendale. Tester is saying he approves the TV ads “even if Washington doesn’t like it.”

I guess I like Tester partially because of his haircut, which is a sort of buzz-cut flat-top ‘do.

Policy-wise, he is a moderate. He supports retaining the Affordable Care Act, which hardly is a poisonous policy position by my standard.

Sure, Montana is a Trump state. The president has campaigned for Rosendale. Given the troubles that are mounting for the president, my sense is that his support for a candidate — even one here in this bastion of the Wild West — is a mixed blessing at best.

Well, it’s my hope anyway.

As for O’Rourke and Cruz … take it away, boys.

State news

Beto over The Cruz Missile? Here’s why

OK, so what if I haven’t come up with a pejorative nickname for the guy I want Texans to send to the U.S. Senate. Maybe he’ll earn it if he gets the chance to represent Texas beginning in 2019.

I do know this: I want Beto O’Rourke to defeat Ted Cruz in the race for the Senate. Some recent polling suggests a tight race. Texas Lyceum has it at 2 percent for Cruz, which makes the contest a statistical dead heat.

Yes, I often refer to the Republican incumbent as The Cruz Missile. I do so because I do not think he places Texas’s interests over his own ambition. He was elected in 2012 and immediately could be seen on TV screens, blathering about this or that. The media glommed onto him, much as they have done with other senatorial newcomers, such as Democrats Kamala Harris and Corey Booker.

A senator who doesn’t earn his or her place on the front row of the political chorus automatically makes me suspicious as to his or her motivation.

Thus, Cruz has become The Missile.

I am going to turn my attention to Beto O’Rourke.

The young man’s issues pronouncements do not seem overly radical, which many on the right are likely to characterize them.

He speaks with compassion about immigration, wanting to preserve the Differed Action on Childhood Arrivals provision, giving so-called “Dreamers” a chance to achieve U.S. citizenship rather than rounding them up and deporting them. He wants to fix the Affordable Care Act, not trash it merely because it was authored by President Obama. O’Rourke wants to be true to our veterans; and this veteran thanks him for that. He believes Earth’s climate is changing and wants to invest more — not less — in alternative energy production to protect the atmosphere against carbon-induced warming.

I am acutely aware of the steep hill that towers in front of O’Rourke. He is campaigning as a Democrat in a state that tends to elect Republicans just because they, well, are Republicans. We live in a conservative state populated by conservatives. O’Rourke will need to tell us what he intends to do for Texans if he gets elected to represent us — and our interests.

As I have watched Sen. Cruz for the past six years, I do not yet know whether he understands yet that he works for us and that he must keep his personal ambition under wraps.

My head tells me a lot of things have to go right for O’Rourke for him to win. My heart wishes they do … and believes they will.

***

Take a look at O’Rourke’s platform. You’ll find it here.

Donald Trump, local news, national security, political news

If POTUS campaigns for Cruz, here’s a thought

The more I think about it the less likely it appears that Donald John Trump will accept U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s invitation to campaign for Cruz’s re-election bid.

I have this feeling in my gut that the men detest each other.

Trump called Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” during the 2016 GOP presidential campaign. Cruz called Trump an “amoral narcissist” and a “pathological liar.” Trump linked Cruz’s father with the JFK murder in Dallas in 1963. Cruz called Trump out for denigrating his family, including his wife, Heidi.

How can they share a stage together? My view? They can’t.

But if Trump proves me wrong — and that’s always entirely possible, if not likely — he ought to come to Collin County. This is strong Republican county just north of Dallas County. It’s tailor-made for someone of the Cruz Missile’s ilk. I haven’t lived here long enough to get a full reading of the lay of the land, but my hunch is that Trump has a reservoir of popularity here.

What’s more, we have a nice venue just around the corner from where my wife and I live. It’s the Allen Event Center. It seats a lot of folks. It’s a modern facility. It’s within walking distance of our residence.

I so want to attend a Trump political rally. You know, of course, it’s not because I want to cheer his every idiotic utterance. It’s not because I want Ted Cruz to win re-election. No, I plan to support Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke.

My intent is to attend this rally with notebook and pen in hand. I crave additional grist for High Plains Blogger.

Sadly, I fear that it won’t happen.

Maybe I can persuade the president to come this way.

Donald Trump, national news, political news

Birtherism falls along racial lines

Now that some of us have raised the “racism” issue as it concerns Donald Trump’s pointed — and quite specific — criticism of African-American political foes, I want to revisit the issue of “birtherism.”

Trump made a lot of noise years ago about whether Barack Obama was qualified to run for president. He based his questions about the lie that Obama was born in Kenya. Therefore, he couldn’t run for president because, according to the U.S. Constitution, Obama wasn’t a “natural-born” citizen of America.

Obama, of course, was born in Hawaii in 1961. He said so at the outset. He finally produced a birth certificate to prove it. That wasn’t good enough for Trump and many others.

Why did Trump and others continue to foment the lie?

Uhh, let me see. Oh, I think it’s race. Obama’s father was a Kenyan. His mother was from Kansas. Dad was black; Mom was white. Get it?

Now, for the other noted “birther” case. It involves U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who ran against Trump for the Republican Party presidential nomination in 2016.

Cruz actually was born outside the United States. He was born in Canada. His father is Cuban. His mother is an American.

Sen. Cruz was able to quell the questions with a simple — and generally accepted — interpretation of the Constitution. Since his mother is a U.S. citizen, Baby Ted became a U.S. citizen immediately upon his birth. Therefore, he qualifies as a “natural-born” citizen simply because of his mother’s citizenship.

Hey, that same logic works for the former president, too. His mother was a U.S. citizen, making him an American the moment he came into this wold. Except that wouldn’t fly in the minds of his critics … and that includes the president of the United States.

And all of that presumes he was born somewhere other than the United States! He was born in the U.S.A., but the questions continue to linger even to this day among most Americans who consider themselves to be Republicans.

Is race a factor? Hmm. I believe it is.

national news

O’Rourke might reshape the Texas landscape

1 Comment

Abby Livingston of the Texas Tribune has written a quite insightful story that starts with one of the better ledes I have read in some time.

Livingston writes: It’s the most backhanded of compliments.

U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke‘s campaign for U.S. Senate has caught so much fire throughout the state that the new favorite betting game in Texas politics is “How close can he get to Ted Cruz in November?”

The implication in the question’s phrasing is that O’Rourke’s loss remains a given.

Her essay is tough to read if you’re supporting O’Rourke’s bid to defeat the Cruz Missile.

Here it is.

O’Rourke is raising a lot of money, far more than Cruz. He has embarked on an unusual campaign strategy, conducting town hall meetings and meet-and-greet with voters who live in heavily Republican rural communities.

Cruz is taking this challenge seriously. Moreover, Cruz does have numbers — and history — on his side. Texas comprises many more Republicans than Democrats; and the state has gone more than two decades since the latest time it elected a Democrat to statewide office.

Yes, O’Rourke’s fight faces some potential head winds.

However, before we assign O’Rourke to the political scrap heap, let me offer this brief reminder.

In 2016, American voters managed to elect to the presidency a man who had never sought a public office. He had zero public service experience and zero inclination toward serving the public. He hurled ghastly insults that offended millions of Americans while campaigning for the presidency.

But … Donald Trump won the Electoral College on the strength of 78,000 votes in three key states and, thus, took office as president of the United States.

Against very long odds.

So, have stranger things than Beto O’Rourke winning this fall happened already?

Yes. They have.

Donald Trump, local news, political news

Please, Mr. POTUS, campaign for Ted Cruz

I have just heard that U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has asked Donald J. Trump to campaign for him as he seeks re-election to his Senate seat in Texas.

Do you know what that means … for me? It means that there’s a decent chance I’ll be within easy driving distance of a Trump rally if he agrees to campaign in Texas for the Cruz Missile — who once called Trump an “amoral … pathological liar.”

We live just north of Dallas these days. We’ll be on the road for most of August, but we’ll have a lot of time on our hands after we return from our trip out west.

Oh, how I want the president to come here. I would actually attend a campaign rally for Cruz if it takes place anywhere near Collin County, where we live.

Hey, we live in a gigantic metro area comprising roughly 7.5 million residents. That means that if Trump agrees, he well might come, say, to Dallas or Fort Worth to speak on behalf of Cruz.

I want to attend one of those dog-and-pony shows.

I’m a political junkie. I love campaign rallies. I’ve covered two national presidential nominating conventions — the 1988 GOP convention in New Orleans and the 1992 GOP event in Houston. I attended the 2012 Democratic convention in Charlotte; I had planned to cover it for the Amarillo Globe-News, but I quit that job suddenly just before the start of the convention. I went there with press credentials, but sat in the cheap seats as a spectator.

All of them were a serious blast and I learned so much getting to watch these events up close.

Donald Trump speaking in Texas on behalf of the state’s junior U.S. senator would be a worthwhile event, too.

Do not expect me to flip, to become a Trumpster listening to the president’s ranting and railing, his insult-hurling rhetoric.

As the Houston Chronicle has reported: Cruz is facing a tougher re-election campaign than many first expected. Polls from the last week have shown Cruz holding onto a single-digit lead over (Beto) O’Rourke, a congressman from El Paso who has set records for Democrats fundraising in Texas.

Let me be clear: I do not want Cruz to be re-elected. I am going to support the Democratic challenger, O’Rourke. But I do want the president to come here to give Texans an up-close look at what a buffoon he can be when he launches into one of those unscripted riffs in front of adoring fans.

Please, Mr. President. Come to Texas! Hey, the Metroplex ought to be a big lure.

2016 election, national news, political news

Senate races decided by differing factors

As I watch the Beto O’Rourke-Ted Cruz race for the U.S. Senate from Texas, I am struck by what is missing in the debate over who Texans should elect.

I am not hearing much chatter on which of these men will do more for Texas.

Will it be Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic congressman from El Paso, or Ted Cruz, the Republican incumbent from Houston? Which of them will work tirelessly on behalf of Texans’ specific needs, wants and desires?

Am I missing something here?

There once was a day when U.S. senatorial clout mattered to the home folks. I want to cite an example from my home state of Oregon.

For years, Oregon was represented by two moderate Republicans: Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood. They were joined at the hip on many issues. They were linked to each other so closely that we in the media used to refer them as “Sen. Hatwood” or Sen. “Packfield.”

They both attained influential committee chairmanships beginning in 1981 when the GOP took control of the upper congressional chamber after Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory in the 1980 presidential election.

Hatfield and Packwood worked diligently to protect Oregon and Pacific Northwest interests.

Along the way, Sen. Packwood ran into ethical trouble relating to the way he treated women who worked on his staff; Packwood ended up resigning his seat. Sen. Hatfield remained the Boy Scout.

As we look at the current day, in Texas, I don’t hear the kind of chatter about Sen. Cruz or, how well he works with Sen. John Cornyn, the state’s senior U.S. senator. My sense is that the two Texans have a bit of a frosty relationship.

Cruz’s tenure in the Senate seems to have centered on his own future. He ran for president in 2016 and was among the final GOP primary candidates to hang in against the party’s nominee before bowing out.

Cruz’s theme so far appears aimed at ginning up GOP interest to counteract rage from the other side. According to the Texas Tribune: “The biggest challenge I have in this race … is complacency,” Cruz said. “People say all the time, ‘Oh, come on, it’s a Texas re-elect. How could you possibly lose?’ Well, in an ordinary cycle, that might be true. But this is not an ordinary cycle. The far left is filled with anger and rage and we underestimate that anger at our peril.”

O’Rourke has closed a once-gaping deficit to make it a race. I’ll stipulate once again that I am pulling for O’Rourke to defeat Cruz.

I’m just waiting to hear from the challenger — or from the incumbent, for that matter — what they’ll do to help Texans.