I hope this poll is accurate, but if it is, I wonder what’s the cause? Carly? Pence’s (barely) endorsement? Boehner’s negative endorsement?
By the way, Boehner’s reaction to Cruz, and his talk about being buds with Trump should put paid to the notion of who the real “anti-establishment” candidate is.
[Update a few minutes later]
Allahpundit would like to believe it, too, but is skeptical.
Meanwhile Cruz is claiming Boehner is just some guy in the neighborhood.
What are you babbling about now?
Are you not aware that Cruz is claiming he didn’t interact with Boehner?
He probably didn’t much. Why would he? Boehner has always hated his guts.
So when Cruz first hears what Boehner said, he says he hardly knew the guy. Cruz slipped up. The story will change.
What basis do you have to think that he did know the guy?
Is there any evidence whatsoever that they ever met often, or are you just so deep up Trump’s ass that you reactively hate the only limited-government guy in the race? Why don’t you want to make America’s government limited again?
As a matter of fact, has anyone ever seen Cruz and Boner in the same room? They might, in fact, be the same person!
First story revision
Ken, I’m sorry your head is so ignorantly embedded in the long-time Democrat Trump’s ass that you fantasize that it is Cruz, and not Trump, who is deeply embedded in the establishment.
You are aware that Trump was a speaker at the 1988 Republican convention and a great admirerer of Dan Quail?
Trump is whatever he needs to be at any given time.
Dan Quayle (yeah, I misspelled it above) was one of the first to get the media Sarah Palin dummy treatment. He was no dummy, but he did mangle his words at times. Jerry Pournelle thought well of him.
At this point, does it really matter? Kasich showed once again that the GOPe has no interest in Cruz. Before there was #neverTrump, we were told never Cruz. Nothing has changed. If there is a 2nd vote, expect stupid party to be stupid.
It could be Indiana sees Carly as the best attack dog against Hillary and they’re sane enough to know never Hillary is the priority.
I can see Indiana voters figuring that out, but GOP? I’m gonna go with no.
Herman Cain gets it.
Herman Cain is a fool, when it comes to politics.
Fool or not, he makes a good point. If the result is Hillary, we will know who the fools are. By now, if it wasn’t Trump, the RNC would be fully behind a nominee.
if it wasn’t Trump [or Cruz], the RNC would be fully behind a nominee.
Reply to above concerning Cruz supposed “First Story Revision”.
There was no revision. Cruz’ statement in full on his working “for Boehner” as a young lawyer:
“I was a junior lawyer. My boss was hired to be [Boehner’s] lawyer,” Cruz explained. “So I worked on the case. I worked on some appellate briefs. I don’t know that I ever met him. We haven’t said 50 words to each other in our lives. I was a baby lawyer a couple years out of law school working on editing some briefs and helping write them. But I don’t know the man.”
That’s what he originally stated. No revision. Try again.
Boehner was speaker while Cruz was a senator. To not know the man says a lot about Cruz. I’m not a fan of Boehner, but apparently he knows Cruz (perhaps better than us in the peanut gallery?)
Since he worked for the man ‘as a baby lawyer’ he may not have interacted with him much then, but subsequently he would have had more opportunity than some random person.
There’s more here to find. I simply do not trust Ted.
I’m not a fan of Boehner, but apparently he knows Cruz (perhaps better than us in the peanut gallery?)
All he knows about Cruz is that he wouldn’t go along with Boehner rolling over for the Democrats again.
All he knows about Cruz is…
You have some secret source? Please share.
I don’t know Boehner other than to dislike him, but it seems curious that he would say what he said about Cruz without some kind of knowledge that you and I lack.
I do know that Cruz was handing out gift baskets to illegals crossing into America. How do you explain that?
I don’t know Boehner other than to dislike him, but it seems curious that he would say what he said about Cruz without some kind of knowledge that you and I lack.
He said what he said because the entire Republican establishment believes it. They hate Cruz, because he wouldn’t go along to get along.
They hate Cruz, because he wouldn’t go along to get along.
That may be, but the level of hate suggests it’s something more. I smell smoke. Boehner says it’s from satan’s fire. But we have even more than that. Cruz is really good at distorting the truth. He (and Carly in perfect unison) want to equate Trump with Hillary. Only a blind (or delusional) person would agree.
Trump has flaws but being Hillary is not one of them.
That may be, but the level of hate suggests it’s something more. I smell smoke.
We don’t care.
I’ve heard too many positive predictions (“you would not BELIEVE the great ground game being run by Cruz supporters in South Carolina!”) to put much stock in this. I hope it’s true, but I certainly wouldn’t bet on it.
Clout Research (R) 4/27 – 4/27 423 LV 4.8 37 35 16 Trump +2
ARG* 4/27 – 4/28 400 LV 5.0 41 32 21 Trump +9
IPFW/Downs Center 4/13 – 4/27 400 LV 4.9 29 45 13 Cruz +16
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/in/indiana_republican_presidential_primary-5786.html
Well if Cruz actually gets +16 than that would be exciting and it’s about what Cruz needs to have much hope.
I personally don’t have any clue why Cruz would get +16. Or doubt picking a VP did this, nor do I accept the theory that Kasich voters would all vote for Cruz is vaguely valid.
But I can see Cruz changing his campaign as a possible cause of this.
Or it could be a little bit of all of those things to varying degrees. Cruz has shown himself able to make a change when a change is needed.
I was glad to see Pence finally step up though, as reported, it was kind of lukewarm. Still, that’s better than choosing Trump.
And yes, if ANYTHING tells you that Cruz is NOT NOT NOT the Establishment, it’s Boehner taking time off from his tanning bed and Chivas Regal to castigate Cruz.
Boehner is the Establishment Personified.
Did ya catch the Trump/Sanders debate?
Trump is whatever he needs to be at any given time.
It seems to have escaped your notice that he’s not very good at it.
The same can be said of Cruz but with a difference, he’s very good at it… but not perfect.
I trust ‘we the people’ on this one. All you’ve got is mind reading.
If he as bad at it, he wouldn’t be on the verge of winning the nomination. It’s all he has.
It’s all he has.
You are discounting that Trump’s set the agenda. Cruz has switched his positions to get to the front of Trump’s parade.
That defines Cruz as the opportunist.
Why don’t you want to make America’s government limited again?
Rand, you know better. I’m the absolute extreme example of a limited govt. advocate.
You can support limited government, or you can support Donald Trump. You can’t do both.
You’re partly right. Trump thinks he can be good for the country but probably not by making it limited. That just means he’s fallen into the same trap as 99.999% of everyone. Very few people agree with my limited govt. position.
However, Trump is a stingy bastard (other than gifts he’s known to give to strangers in trouble???) I’d like to see him do for govt. what he’s done as a businessman.
He might even cancel the SLS.
“He might even cancel the SLS.”
Nah, SLS is huuge.
He will modify it so it has big
gold letters: TRUMP.
Get huge payload of pig shit and
bomb ISIS with it
Get huge payload of pig shit and bomb ISIS with it.
There ya go. That alone should be reason to elect him.
On further research it looks like Cruz didn’t make any attempt to know the speaker. I find that astounding. There are 100 senators but only one speaker which puts the responsibility on the senators to make the first move. Apparently Ted had no interest in normal human interaction (politicians even more so usually.) I find that very revealing.
The reason the Trump, anti-Trump battle has all the hallmarks of a civil war is that it is a civil war, with the same forces and same social elements of the Civil War, and it will go the same way. The Roundheads will win.
McConnell is our McClellan who makes endless excuses for failure no matter how many forces we give him. Cruz is the polished strategist who can recite the entire catechism of Napoleonic tactics and drill, and execute them flawlessly, but keeps on failing in head-to-head battles while he brags about his brilliant victories where he slipped into his opponent’s camp after nightfall, in a theater that wasn’t even contested, to slay defenseless and surprised camp followers, and offers this as proof of his strategic brilliance.
Our problem is that Republicans keep losing because their leadership won’t fight. Everything is out of bounds. Proper decorum must be maintained. It’s probably the result of absorbing Southerners and combining their most dysfunctional traits with the most dysfunctional traits of Northern Republicans to ceate a hybrid mutant out of the pathological dysfunctions of Union generals and Confederate Generals.
They won’t fight and they won’t dare be insulted or relieved, either. Command should go to the one with the most honor and the purest heart who is most favored by the Lord, but who also won’t take any risks.
In contrast, Trump is Grant. He’s uncouth, uncivilized, drunk, and ignorant of nuance and complexity. He’s a buffoon. There’s no way he should be allowed any position of power and he shouldn’t be in considered in the same breath as more worthy generals. But he fights. He fights and he wins.
He also fires people at the drop of a hat for failing to win. In the Confederacy, the heirs of the Cavaliers in the English Civil War, they wouldn’t dare question a gentleman’s honor and wouldn’t insult his family by relieving him. Every excuse for failure was swallowed.
The Roundheads and the later Yankees fired officers for failure until they found someone who could do the job. The Confederacy ended the Civil War with the exact lineup they started with. The Union didn’t have such sentimentality and used a high turnover rate to weed through people who talked a great game but couldn’t deliver on the battlefield.
The first time Ivanka Trump went on Letterman she said her dad would fire her if she didn’t deliver. Then she related how Larry King asked Donald if he would do something like that and Donald said “I would fire her like a dog.”
That’s what the Roundheads are looking for. He may be unschooled and uncouth, but he fights and he’s willing to fire his own daughter if she can’t do the job. It’s in stark contrast to the GOP establishment who have somehow come to think that abject failure guarantees their job security and highlights their conservative purity, a purity that puts principle before results. They may be honorable and highly principled, but they’re also highly principled ineffectual losers who have failed to hold any ground Obama wants to occupy.
So just as Lincoln did when faced with the same dilemma, and under the same vicious backlash from the establishment and all right-thinking people, the Roundheads are going with the profane drunk guy who will fight like the honey badger and fire anybody who fails to perform.
He will make blunders, sometimes big ones that cost us a lot of casualties, but he will keep rolling forward and going at the enemy until they are crushed, without worrying about what the DC pundits and chattering class are saying.
The party establishment hasn’t been using the army to win anything no matter how many resources we give them, so I’m for letting Trump borrow it to win some bloody head-to-head victories, even as all the useless masters of strategy explain, while they sip brandy on the cocktail circuit, how he’ll be crushed.
We want to win, and by process of elimination that means Grant.
I think you’ve nailed it George.
Thanks. I’m trying to clean it up a bit and maybe rework a few parts, but the key insight is that every deep-sounding Civil War analogy must be true or historians wouldn’t keep using them.\^_^
But seriously, I think what led me to that train of thought was a Rush caller who said “I disagree with 80% of what Trump says, but he fights!” And then the Danker memo noted that Trump just through the campaign play book of tested strategies out the window and decided to fight in every state.
The rest was just observing the bitter back and forth, especially at places like National Review where the esteemed pundits would rather lose with Hillary that support such an uncouth barbarian. And somehow I felt we’d seen this civil war stuff all before.
The Danker memo is a must-read, by the way. I haven’t seen that much political insight in one piece in a long time.