Ted Cruz Should Apologize...

[Lord Jim]

But of course he won't, because apologizing is not a part of The Junior Senator From Texas's make up:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), the first speaker at this year’s CPAC, urged Republicans to run campaigns on true conservative principles and suggested some recent GOP presidential candidates weren’t up to the task.

“We all remember President Dole, President McCain and President Romney,” Cruz said. He praised the trio as “good men” but said conservatives lose when they don’t stand by their principles....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/pos ... -ron-paul/

During his speech to the CPAC crowd on Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) facetiously recalled “Presidents” Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney to make a point about how Republicans need to “stand for principle” in order to win big elections. Today, Sen. McCain fired back at Cruz during an appearance on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports.

McCain said he spoke to Cruz about the comments and it was “cordial” but he took specific offense at the remarks concerning Dole. “He can say what he wants to about me and he can say anything he wants to about Mitt,” McCain said, “but when he throws Bob Dole in there, I wonder if he thinks that Bob Dole stood for principle on that hilltop in Italy, when he was so gravely wounded and left part of his body there fighting for our country?”

“Bob Dole is such a man of honor and integrity and principle,” McCain continued. “I hope that Ted Cruz will apologize to Bob Dole, because that has crossed a line that to me leaves the realm of the politics and discourse that we should have in America.”

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/john-mccain- ... -comments/

I've made no secret of the fact that I have little use for Tail Gunner Ted, ( an analogy which is actually unfair to the erstwhile Junior Senator From Wisconsin; since McCarthy really did fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy)

But one can't help but speculate as to how Teddy Boy would have comported himself on that hill in Italy, or how he would have reacted after several years of torture in the Hanoi Hilton to getting the "get out of jail free card" that was offered to Senator McCain, (because of his father) that McCain refused because of the military "principle" that POWs are to be released in the order that they are taken prisoner...

That looks like "standing by principle" to me...

I know that Cruz wasn't really trying to dis these men; and I understand the "point" he was trying to make...

It's a point some of my Conservative Brethren try to make frequently; "If we just nominated someone conservative enough victory would be ours"...

(Many on The Left have the same lamentation)

Personally, I don't agree with that view. The fact is that if you drill down to look for the reasons for the GOP Presidential defeats in '96, '08, and '12, there are a lot of dynamics involved, and "the Republicans didn't nominate a candidate who was conservative enough" doesn't make the top hundred on the list...

But nevertheless, if that's the point you want to try to make; ie, "we lose because we don't nominate candidates who are conservative enough"... there are better ways to make it than insulting two of America's greatest living war heroes...

[Lord Jim]

Here's the exact quote From Cruz' speech that makes the use of the word "principle" an issue, (it's not as clear in the Post article I quoted in the OP)

“Of course all of us remember President Dole and President McCain and President Romney,” he joked. “Those are good men, they’re decent men but when you don’t stand and draw a clear distinction, when you don’t stand for principle, Democrats celebrate.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/t ... 04345.html

(Well okay, I'll give him a pass on Romney...)

[Sue U]

Oh, Romney has principles. And if you don't like them, well ... he has others.

[rubato]

Ahhh Ted Cruz the once and future King of the GOP explains it all for you.

In Cruz-World the way for three presidential candidates, who all lost to people more liberal than themselves, was to move further and further to the nutcase-right.

The thing is, he isn't sitting out on the fringe with the Paul dynasty, which all of us would like to think, (even democrats would like Republican candidates who are not insane, dishonest or stupid) he would have been about center of the last group of aspirants for the GOP nomination. Just try and figure out whether he or Bachmann was further right or less connected to reality. Go ahead. And how about Santorum, Gingrich, Perry? (Someone just mentioned Romney's moral flexibility.)

You can't rank them in a series where one end is better and the other is worse they all just pile up like a heap of mental dung waiting for its special beetle to come, roll it away, and put it out of sight.

I'm surprised more Republicans are not disgusted. I guess you can get used to anything. The sense of smell exhausts very quickly.

yrs,
rubato

[dgs49]

I haven't paid close attention to the Ted Cruz guy, but it is apparent that he is one of the targeted Republicans whose words are being parsed daily by the MSM, in the hope that they will find something that either is, or can be construed as embarrassing. It's waaaaaaay too soon to be thinking that anything said today will have any impact on the Republican primaries a couple years from now.

Jimmy, in your analysis of the "not conservative enough" school of thought, consider the power of Mr. Newt's Contract with America. Articulating Conservative principles from top to bottom, that one campaign strategy brought about the overthrow of the most entrenched of Democratic majorities in the House. Since then, the Republicans have declined to nominate a "real" conservative in any election and STILL managed to win in 2000 and 2004.

Despite the flood of government teat suckers in every national election, the core of the electorate still supports things like low taxes, limited government, strong defense, and as little regulation as possible. If we could only nominate a conservate who can actually speak publicly, we would win the White House in a landslide. If we nominate another moderate, we might as well save our pennies and not vote.

[Scooter]

IJimmy, in your analysis of the "not conservative enough" school of thought, consider the power of Mr. Newt's Contract with America. Articulating Conservative principles from top to bottom, that one campaign strategy brought about the overthrow of the most entrenched of Democratic majorities in the House.

A lovely piece of mythology that is flatly contradicted by the facts. A Republican wave had already begun in 1993 with wins in Democratic strongholds. By the time the Contract was released, very late in the campaign, Republicans were already leading the polls.

And of course that is to say nothing about how little of the Contract was actually implemented, and how much of that was undone by Republicans themselves in later years, once they discovered that being in the majority had its privileges.

Bob Dole wasn't a real conservative? What, a 15% across the board tax cut and a fetal rights constitutional amendment didn't satisfy your litmus test? But Newt Gingrich does. Apparently promising to spend up to $500 billion to put a colony on the moon is some sort of foundational conservative dogma.

[rubato]

And the Republican majority only manged to hold the line on spending as well as the democrats had done before them for two years before they began spending freely in preparation for the total collapse of restraint in the Bush II spending spree.


yrs,
rubato