I think Ted Cruz is this election's Herman Cain. I look forward to his similar ride off into the sunset. And hope his horse bucks him off and steps directly on his ballsack.
Except not. Herman Cain was never elected to any office, and his only experience in public service was a brief stint with the Federal Reserve.
Cruz served as an adviser to the Bush campaign, worked for the DOJ, was Solicitor General of the second largest state in the union, and now represents that state in the Senate. He was instrumental in shutting down the federal government. He may be as crazy as Cain, but he's far more serious a candidate. You're not going to see him saying "Uzbeki-beki-beki-stan" on national TV.
I think ESF is right that Fiorina is much more analogous to Cain.
Also, Texas is just weird. The demographics are changing, and it does have the potential to turn purple. But then there are people like my dad, who has basically become a caricature of an angry white rural male who are convinced Obama does not love American and we need to put God back in the White House. And he's hardly an anomaly.
It is interesting here. Obviously the cities are really blue. I think there are lots of more moderate types of voters, who if you sit & talk to them about issues, would tend to be on board with some (most?) of the Dem policies, especially in the social realm (abortion, women's issues, environment, judicial reform). However, they watch too much Fox news, have voted GOP their entire life, are generally disinterested in politics enough to follow it, and still have boogie man issues (like gun control & immigration & taxes) that will always make them vote GOP even if they recognize that the GOP has some batshit crazy positions on other things.
Andplusalso, see my note above about gerrymandered districts & the fact that some how the GOP gets to (laughably) claim the title of the party that cares about fiscal responsibility.
This is why primaries are so important but they generally have the lowest voter turnout. It's the same here in TN. We have a few blue areas but the vast majority of people vote R and will regardless of the candidate in the general.
I think Ted Cruz is this election's Herman Cain. I look forward to his similar ride off into the sunset. And hope his horse bucks him off and steps directly on his ballsack.
Except not. Herman Cain was never elected to any office, and his only experience in public service was a brief stint with the Federal Reserve.
Cruz served as an adviser to the Bush campaign, worked for the DOJ, was Solicitor General of the second largest state in the union, and now represents that state in the Senate. He was instrumental in shutting down the federal government. He may be as crazy as Cain, but he's far more serious a candidate. You're not going to see him saying "Uzbeki-beki-beki-stan" on national TV.
I think ESF is right that Fiorina is much more analogous to Cain.
I don't mean it so...literal. I mean he'll be a flash in the plan on the natl. stage, and only be left with the hardcore Cruzers thinking he matters.
Except not. Herman Cain was never elected to any office, and his only experience in public service was a brief stint with the Federal Reserve.
Cruz served as an adviser to the Bush campaign, worked for the DOJ, was Solicitor General of the second largest state in the union, and now represents that state in the Senate. He was instrumental in shutting down the federal government. He may be as crazy as Cain, but he's far more serious a candidate. You're not going to see him saying "Uzbeki-beki-beki-stan" on national TV.
I think ESF is right that Fiorina is much more analogous to Cain.
I don't mean it so...literal. I mean he'll be a flash in the plan on the natl. stage, and only be left with the hardcore Cruzers thinking he matters.
I predict the opposite. I'm going to make a poll and then bookmark it so we can come back. When the dust settles, we need to memorialize who was right about Cruz.
Texas has the lowest voter turnout of any state in the country and has for years. I think you are right that it absolutely has the potential to turn purple if the voter turnout issue can be fixed.
It is no coincidence that the purple and about-to-turn purple states are where the GOP has focused efforts on curbing voter participation through voter ID laws, confusing regulations, reduced numbers of precincts, and other kinds of voting hurdles.
Also, Texas is just weird. The demographics are changing, and it does have the potential to turn purple. But then there are people like my dad, who has basically become a caricature of an angry white rural male who are convinced Obama does not love American and we need to put God back in the White House. And he's hardly an anomaly.
Texas is just plain stupid. One of my responsibilities at my last job was getting our insureds to register for a database so that we could handle the Medicare compliance to make sure that bills that were supposed to go to us would not be sent to the government for payment and they would fight me tooth and nail over it. I would explain it using my best conversational Conservative and I'd still get treated to rants about Obama care, welfare, immigrants, and all sorts of nonsense. It got so ridiculous that I stopped explaining what they needed to do and just told then they risked losing their coverage if they didn't fill out those forms and send them back to us. It doesn't help that my local Fox affiliate regularly airs stories from Fox News and that if there's a waiting room with televisions there's a 90% chance that all of them will be turned to Fox so the manufactured outrage and persecution are being blasted to us all day long.
government workers are FAR more likely to be unionized, and therefore, are the enemy. FFS, just look at what they're doing to the postal service because they hate that union so much.
also, if you're going to make government small enough to drown in a bathtub, you can't worry about the collateral damage to a bunch of whiny liberal union members who probably couldn't get jobs in the private sector (why wouldn't they, when they could be paid so much more?)
Now I'm even more angry.
Also as a fed employee you're not important because there is no 0.1%-er heading up your company who will make big contributions to the candidate who gives him the biggest deal.
...So I don't actually think that rural white male anger is going to be enough to carry a national election where you've got a multicultural population and less devout partisans driving the outcome. ...
And for the record, I'm seriously pissed off that we've got a whole party that denies reality, and yet, liberals are perceived as being giant babies throwing tantrums for not getting their way.