Tag Archives: Ted Cruz

political news, State news

Trump ‘endorses’ possible Perry bid against Cruz

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Is there any alliance more fragile than one built out of political necessity?

I think not.

Donald J. Trump came to Texas this week for a rally in Austin. Someone asked him about reports that former Texas Gov. Rick Pery is considering a challenge in 2018 against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

The Republican presidential nominee said, according to the Texas Tribune: I’ve been hearing a lot about that and I don’t know if he wants to do it, but boy, will he do well,” Trump said of Perry. “People love him in Texas, and he was one great governor.”

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/08/24/donald-trump-encourages-rick-perry-challenge-cruz/

Talk about a clumsy political dance.

* Gov. Perry once was a GOP candidate for president; he dropped out.

* Then he endorsed his fellow Texan, Sen. Cruz, who fought Trump nearly all the way to the convention before he, too, dropped out.

* Perry then endorsed Trump.

* Cruz, meanwhile, declined to endorse Trump when he spoke at the Republican convention, drawing a huge chorus of boos from the delegates who heard Cruz encourage Republicans to “vote your conscience” this fall in the race against Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Now we have Trump visiting Texas’s capital city and all but enticing Perry to make a run for the Senate if he’s so inclined.

It’s becoming something of a parlor game these days to try to understand Trump’s thinking on, oh, just about anything and everything.

Would the party’s 2016 presidential nominee actually endorse Perry over Cruz? Would it matter if he did?

What’s more, is Rick Perry seriously thinking about a campaign against the guy he endorsed for president first?

Or is Gov. Perry among the Republicans who are angry at Sen. Cruz for failing to endorse the party’s presidential nominee?

national news, political news

Birtherism will live forever

obama

I thought I was done writing about birthers, those individuals who keep insisting that President Barack Obama was born in a country other than the United States of America.

Silly me.

A new poll is out. It says that more than 70 percent of Republicans believe the president was not born in the United States, that he was born in a foreign country, that he’s somehow not a legitimate president.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-persistent-partisan-divide-over-birther-question-n627446?cid=sm_tw

This might be the last time I’ll ever write about it. Then again, it might not be.

Allow me to make a couple of points.

First, the president produced a long-firm birth certificate that declares he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in August 1961, two years after Hawaii became one of the 50 states. He showed it to all of us .

That doesn’t seem to satisfy Republicans who continue to insist that he’s a foreigner.

Second, we also had this discussion with former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who actually was born in another country. He was born in Canada — to an American mother and a Cuban father. Cruz, though, said he was a U.S. citizen by virtue of his mother’s citizenship.

Which brings me back to the point about Obama’s citizenship. His mother was a U.S. citizen, too; his father — who he barely knew — was Kenyan.

And that brings us to the final point.

If Barack H. Obama had been born on, oh, Mars to an American mother and a foreign-born father, he still would be eligible to run — and serve — as president of the United States.

But that partisan divide keeps this non-story alive and kicking.

The Constitution doesn’t stipulate precisely that a presidential candidate must be born within the nation’s borders. It says only that a “natural-born” citizen is eligible to run and serve.

In both instances, Sen. Cruz and President Obama are eligible to run for and serve as president.

However, in the matter involving the current president, he’s produced a U.S. birth certificate. It’s too bad, though, that most Republicans still seem to refuse to believe their lying eyes.

political news, State news

Rep. Castro gets Dems’ hearts to flutter

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That pitter-patter you might be hearing belongs to the hearts of Texas Democrats who might seem to be excited at the prospect of an actual serious challenger to run against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

The cause of the racing heartbeat is U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, who has let it be known that he might run in 2018 against the man I’ve enjoyed referring to as the Cruz Missile.

Cruz is a Republican lawmaker who was the last man standing in the fight to deny Donald J. Trump the GOP presidential nomination. He made a heck of splash at last week’s Republican national convention by declining to endorse the man who beat him to the finish line.

He got booed off the Cleveland stage.

Will this damage him in Texas? My gut tells me he might face a stronger challenge from within his own party than he might face from a Democrat, even one as attractive, articulate and polished as Joaquin Castro.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/07/26/joaquin-castro-considers-texas-senate-run-cruz/

I remain fervent in my belief that Texas is better served with a vibrant two-party system. We do not have a Democratic Party that is yet able to challenge Republicans at the statewide level. Republicans win big — every time. They’ve held every statewide office in Texas since 1998. I don’t see any sign of weakness in the GOP vise grip.

Will it present itself in 2018 when Ted Cruz runs for re-election to the U.S. Senate. Rep. Castro seems to think it might.

I hope he’s correct. Cruz simply is not my kind of senator.

However, I’m not yet ready to presume that the Cruz Missile will fizzle out.

national news, political news

Let’s toss ‘boring’ out of describing Democrats’ convention

democratic-national-convention

It seems as though Democrats’ wish for a “boring” national presidential nominating convention has been flushed away.

It remains an open question, though, whether the lack of boredom bodes ill for the Democrats as they battle Donald J. Trump and the Republicans for the presidency of the United States.

The raucousness of the GOP convention last week now seems a bit quaint.

Democrats have convened their gathering amid a lot of tumult over some e-mails that included unflattering language from DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her open disdain for Bernie Sanders and his insurgent candidacy for the party nomination.

Someone, I suppose, needed to remind Schultz that party chairs are supposed to at least put on the appearance of neutrality. Not so with the chairwoman, who has quit her job.

Hillary Clinton is going to be nominated this week as the Democratic presidential candidate. Tonight, Sen. Sanders will speak to the delegates. Yeah, he’ll get a lot of cheers. He’ll get some boos, too, when he tells his supporters he intends to back Clinton and will work hard to get her elected.

He’ll endorse Clinton — again tonight. It’s a certainty he won’t draw the kind of boos and jeers that Ted Cruz did when he declined to endorse Trump during his big night at the GOP convention.

This convention, though, won’t be boring.

national news, political news, State news

Cruz gets pounded … by Texas delegates!

Cruz_Trump_ap_img

So help me, I think I need an intervention.

I’m about to stand up for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

Cruz spoke last night to the Republican National Convention. The so-called “smart money” had been put down by those who were certain he would endorse GOP nominee Donald J. Trump.

Cruz didn’t go there. He didn’t go anywhere near there. He stood before the convention crowd and encouraged them to “vote your conscience.”

A lot of delegates took that to mean “vote for anyone other than our nominee.” They started booing. Loudly.

This morning, Sen. Cruz stood before the Texas convention delegation and defended himself against his fellow Texans.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/07/21/cruzs-failure-to-endorse-trump-upsets-voters-video/

I totally support Cruz’s decision to decline to endorse Trump.

Sen. Cruz has good reason. The nominee “defamed” Cruz’s father by implying that Daddy Cruz might have been complicit in the assassination of President Kennedy. Rafael Cruz supposedly had spoken to Lee Harvey Oswald before JFK was shot to death. Therefore, the innuendo was planted.

Trump also released a tweet showing Heidi Cruz, the former GOP candidate’s wife, in an unflattering picture.

Cruz said this morning that Trump had defamed his father and maligned his wife.

How in the world does a candidate toss all that aside and then endorse a candidate for the presidency of the United States?

I am not privy to Cruz’s ulterior motive. There’s been much chatter today about how is now planning to run for president again in 2020, presuming that Trump loses the election this fall.

In the context of the current convention climate and the current nominee, I believe Ted Cruz did what he felt he had to do.

Sure, he’s going to take plenty of flak from other Republicans.

He’s not, though, the “sore loser” others have called him. I prefer to think of him as a loving husband and son.

national news, political news

Oh, yes, and then there’s the Golden Rule

Golden-Rule-1

“Do to others what you want them to do to you. This is the meaning of the law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets.”

Matthew 7:12

Ah, yes. You’ve that said before, yes?

The New Testament of the Bible attributes that admonition to none other than Jesus of Nazareth.

I am extremely nervous melding Scripture with contemporary American politics. But the Golden Rule seems somehow appropriate to mention in this context.

Ted Cruz last night stood before the Republican National Convention and delivered a stem winder of a speech that said almost everything he was expected to say … except for this: “I hereby endorse Donald J. Trump for president of the United States.”

He didn’t go there. And why do you suppose he declined to take that step?

Because of what he described as the “slander” and “defamation” of this wife and father. Trump tweeted that unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz during the primary campaign. Then he implied that Sen. Cruz’s father might have been complicit in President Kennedy’s assassination. Sen. Cruz told the Texas convention delegates this morning that he couldn’t endorse someone who had treated two of his loved ones with such cruelty.

“I am not in the habit of supporting those who attack and slander my wife and my father,” he said.

It’s fair to ask: How do you suppose Donald Trump would react if someone had said anything like that about his father and his wife?

The Golden Rule can be found in many religious contexts, be it Judaism, Hinduism and Islam … in addition to Christianity.

Trump has said he is a “religious person.” Well, someone who knows and follows the teachings provided in the Holy Bible might be aware of what Matthew’s Gospel tells us about how to treat others.

The Golden Rule seems always to take a beating during the heat of a fierce political battle. Politicians say things about their opponents that they never would tolerate from others and none of this is unique to the current campaign.

Trump’s way of tossing out insults and innuendo as weapons against his foes — and against their family members — puts the Golden Rule into sharper-than-usual focus during this election cycle.

I know that critics of this blog will respond with rejoinders about how politicians dating back to the beginning of the Republic have said far worse than what Trump has uttered.

Fine. Bring it on.

However, at this very moment my particular focus is on a major political party’s nominee for the presidency of the United States of America. This man has failed to abide by the Golden Rule.

national news, political news

‘I did not say a negative word about Donald Trump’

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Ted Cruz did not endorse Donald J. Trump when he spoke to the Republican National Convention delegates.

No. The junior U.S. senator from Texas spoke about conservative principles, the Constitution and faithfulness to principle.

But he didn’t “say a negative word about Donald Trump.”

Thus, Cruz said this morning in remarks to the Texas convention delegation, he is comfortable with the theme of his speech.

I am scratching my head this morning. I’m trying to shake the cobwebs loose.

I watched most of Sen. Cruz’s speech Wednesday night. I waited for the “Therefore, I intend to endorse …” moment. It didn’t come.

And when Cruz finished his speech, the hoots and jeers from the convention floor drowned out whatever cheers were coming from the floor.

My question this morning centers on this issue: If you’re a presidential nominee and you are in charge of the convention agenda, don’t you want to be sure that if your chief challenger is going to speak to the convention — during prime TV time — that the challenger endorses your candidacy?

So, this morning the punditry across the country isn’t talking about vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence’s remarks at the end of the evening. We’re talking instead about what Ted Cruz didn’t say.

I get that this isn’t the first example of challengers failing to endorse their party’s nominee at the convention. Ronald Reagan’s speech at the1976 GOP convention didn’t exactly offer a ringing endorsement of President Ford; Nelson Rockefeller was booed during his entire speech by Barry Goldwater delegates at the 1964 GOP gathering; Ted Kennedy finished his 1980 speech at the Democratic convention without endorsing President Carter and then was chased around the stage as Carter sought to raise his hand in that symbolic pose.

Trump has campaigned on his take-charge, can-do approach to everything.

He hasn’t taken charge of the political convention that has nominated him to run for president of the United States.

national news, political news

Cruz’s ‘dream’ still burns brightly

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So much for the anticipation of an endorsement from one of Donald J. Trump’s chief Republican rivals.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz strode to the microphone this evening to speak to GOP convention delegates. Many of them expected — or at least hoped — that the Texas lawmaker would endorse the man of the hour, Trump.

He didn’t.

Cruz mentioned the party presidential nominee’s one time. He did it early in his remarks … and then tore into a riff about the fight for freedom, liberty and working men and women.

He spoke to the strong conservative principles that helped fuel his own presidential candidacy. Cruz said he’ll continue to fight for those principles during this campaign and into the future.

I haven’t heard anyone say it just yet, but to my ears Sen. Cruz seemed to echo an earlier speech given by the “liberal lion of the Senate,” the late Ted Kennedy.

It was Kennedy in 1980 who fought President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. That campaign was bitter, as was this year’s GOP campaign.

Did Kennedy endorse Carter during his time on the podium? Oh, no.

Instead, he spoke to the progressive principles that fueled his failed presidential campaign, concluding his stem winder with “the dream shall never die!”

Yes, I saw some symmetry in those two speeches.

I should note that Carter went on that year to lose h-u-u-u-u-g-e to Republican Ronald Reagan.

Is the No. 2 GOP primary finisher’s non-endorsement speech a harbinger of what’s going to happen this fall?

Let’s all stay tuned.

national news, political news

Cruz endorsement might not arrive

Trump-Cruz-Cleveland-620x342

The question of the night for political junkies from coast to coast … to coast.

Will U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz endorse Donald J. Trump when he stands in front of the Republican National Convention crowd?

If I could predict anything, I’d say ain’t no way, no how, no never mind.

Cruz has called Trump everything but the Devil Himself.

Pathologist liar; narcissist “the likes of which I’ve never seen”; a whole plethora of nasty names.

He challenged Trump’s courage after the GOP frontrunner put a tweet out there that poked malicious fun at Heidi Cruz, for crying out loud.

Having declared that by any reasonable measure, Cruz wouldn’t ever endorse Donald Trump, we have the following:

Rick Perry endorsed Trump after calling him a “cancer on conservatism; Chris Christie endorsed Trump after saying he is “unfit” to become president; Marco Rubio has all but endorsed Trump after calling him a “con man.”

Cruz’s speech tonight is ginning up a bunch of speculation. Some sources say there might be an endorsement forthcoming; others say there won’t be an endorsement, but that he’ll express “support” for the nominee and for the party.

Still others have suggested that given Cruz’s fervent support among many of the convention delegates that he might deliver a “Dream Shall Never Die” sort of message, a la the kind of speech Ted Kennedy gave during the 1980 Democratic convention after losing that fight to President Carter.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/rnc-2016-ted-cruz-donald-trump-endorsement-225850

Some conservatives want Cruz to endorse Trump.

I’ll tune in later tonight to see if Cruz prefers to stand by a nominee he cannot stand or will stand by the “conservative principles” that mean nothing to the guy who’s going to lead the party into the election campaign.

national news, political news

Mike Pence: ‘attack dog’

pence

Commentators all over the country are saying essentially the same thing about Mike Pence, the Republican vice-presidential nominee-to-be.

He will assume the role of presidential nominee Donald J. Trump’s “attack dog.”

That has me scratching my noggin.

Does that mean Trump actually needs someone now to take the fight to Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Democrats? Hasn’t the GOP candidate done a good job of that already, all by himself?

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/mike-pence-radio-show-225661

Pence said all the right things this morning when Trump trotted him out and introduced him as his running mate. He cited two reasons for accepting this challenge, the second of which was that Hillary Rodham Clinton shouldn’t ever become president of the United States. With that he received the biggest applause he would get from the crowd assembled inside the meeting room.

Pence will be an attack dog, but my strong hunch is that his attacks are going to look mighty tame compared to what Trump has launched already throughout this campaign.

Look what Trump did to every one of his Republican rivals? He was able to hang labels on several of them. He pilloried some of them with insults. For good measure, he tossed out some innuendo — such as when he implied that Sen. Ted Cruz’s father might have been complicit in President Kennedy’s murder.

Did it bother his ardent fans? Oh, no. It endeared him to them.

Gov. Mike Pence’s attack dog role will represent a “doubling down” of a strategy that Donald Trump has employed already with astonishing success.