(Politico) Insiders: Ted Cruz hurt most by Trump candidacy

[Statistikhengst]

Politico has a series where it does interviews with insiders deep within both parties about the current issues leading up to 2016. Some, but not all, of the interviews are anonymous.

Insiders Ted Cruz hurt most by Trump candidacy - Katie Glueck - POLITICO

Donald Trump’s turn in the national spotlight is mainly taking a toll on Ted Cruz, the Texas firebrand running as an uncompromising, anti-establishment conservative.

That’s the assessment of this week’s POLITICO Caucus, our weekly survey of the leading strategists, activists and political operatives in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Roughly a third of Iowa and New Hampshire Republican insiders pointed to Cruz as the candidate who is damaged the most in their states by Trump’s rise in the polls and emergence as a media-grabbing protest candidate.

“The Trump Circus is no doubt having the biggest impact on Ted Cruz. Cruz, the incumbent proxy for the disaffected GOP “Hell No!” Caucus, has been virtually starved of oxygen since Trump entered the race,” said an Iowa Republican, who, like all POLITICO Caucus participants, was granted anonymity in order to speak freely.

“Cruz needs to consolidate the rage-against-the-machine, anti-establishment block of Caucus votes (both the harder-edged evangelicals and tea party types) as his Iowa Caucus foundation upon which to build,” said another Iowa Republican. “Trump is sucking all the oxygen out of the room. While I seriously doubt most of those folks will ultimately caucus for Trump, his message is scratching their anti-establishment itch at a time when Cruz needs to start showing some momentum.”

More information at the link.

You thoughts?

 

[CowboyTed]

Loving Trump, he will make sure a Democrat will win in 2016.

Thanks man.

 

[rightwinger]

No doubt Trump is pulling the batshit crazy vote away from Cruz

 

[Statistikhengst]

Hillary is on track to win, with or without Trump's shenanigans.

But it's fun to watch him tear up the GOP.

 

[RightNorLeft]

Trumps will peter out, cruz would have gone down without trump. Cruz himself admitted he presented himself all wrong, notice hes shut his yap of late

 

[Statistikhengst]

Trumps will peter out, cruz would have gone down without trump. Cruz himself admitted he presented himself all wrong, notice hes shut his yap of late

Hmmmmm, not so sure about that.

Cruz has raised a lot of dough. He will have money to burn through for a while.

 

[rightwinger]

While Trump will never win, he is pulling all the attention in the GOP field. At a time candidates are entering the race and need to get their names known.....all eyes are on Trump

 

[tinydancer]

Trump is drawing all the fire away from the other candidates. And that is fabulous because it means that the other candidates can work the GOP primaries pretty well unscathed for a while.

He certainly has the media's knickers in a twist. Actually that's putting it mildly. The Donald has many of the left wing loon commentators in a rabid lather.

 

[rightwinger]

Trump is drawing all the fire away from the other candidates. And that is fabulous because it means that the other candidates can work the GOP primaries pretty well unscathed for a while.

He certainly has the media's knickers in a twist. Actually that's putting it mildly. The Donald has many of the left wing loon commentators in a rabid lather.

Even bad publicity is better than no publicity

When was the last time anyone heard from Carson, Fiorina, Paul or Perry?

 

[Statistikhengst]

While Trump will never win, he is pulling all the attention in the GOP field. At a time candidates are entering the race and need to get their names known.....all eyes are on Trump

Which forces them to spend more money to somehow get into the limelight, which again forces them to raise more money when they could be campaigning, which in turns slowly depletes the number of donors willing to donate every month.

So, I think that what the Don is doing is great.

The GOP will have shot most of it's $$$-wad at the end of the primaries. I'm cool with that.

 

[PratchettFan]

Trump is drawing all the fire away from the other candidates. And that is fabulous because it means that the other candidates can work the GOP primaries pretty well unscathed for a while.

He certainly has the media's knickers in a twist. Actually that's putting it mildly. The Donald has many of the left wing loon commentators in a rabid lather.

He has certainly done that, but it has benefited the democrats more than the republicans. Perhaps he will help drive home the idiocy of using primaries to select candidates and get us back to doing this at the convention. If that happens, then this clown show will have been positive after all.

 

[BULLDOG]

I'm sure the insiders have a better handle on it than me, but It looks like Trump is firing up the crazy base, and once fired up, they will vote R even after Trump drops out. That leaves Cruz as heir apparent to inherit all of Trumps support without having to say all the crazy things that Trump has already said. If Cruz and the rest of the right wants to, they will be free to court a more moderate constituency knowing that Trump will deliver the crazies on his way out.

 

[PratchettFan]

I'm sure the insiders have a better handle on it than me, but It looks like Trump is firing up the crazy base, and once fired up, they will vote R even after Trump drops out. That leaves Cruz as heir apparent to inherit all of Trumps support without having to say all the crazy things that Trump has already said. If Cruz and the rest of the right wants to, they will be free to court a more moderate constituency knowing that Trump will deliver the crazies on his way out.

It doesn't work that way. The crazy base doesn't vote republican, it votes crazy. Once you get into the real election they still vote crazy or they do not vote at all. But the crazy base is a small percentage of the electorate and the majority doesn't vote crazy. So the candidate has a choice of being crazy and losing the election or not being crazy and losing the crazy base - which probably means losing the election. What compounds that is, with the crazy base fired up, the candidate has to be crazy to some extent or the crazy base blocks their nomination, which means they go into the election at least partly crazy and they have to spend considerable effort to back off from craziness, which only further alienates the crazies.

 

[BULLDOG]

I'm sure the insiders have a better handle on it than me, but It looks like Trump is firing up the crazy base, and once fired up, they will vote R even after Trump drops out. That leaves Cruz as heir apparent to inherit all of Trumps support without having to say all the crazy things that Trump has already said. If Cruz and the rest of the right wants to, they will be free to court a more moderate constituency knowing that Trump will deliver the crazies on his way out.

It doesn't work that way. The crazy base doesn't vote republican, it votes crazy. Once you get into the real election they still vote crazy or they do not vote at all. But the crazy base is a small percentage of the electorate and the majority doesn't vote crazy. So the candidate has a choice of being crazy and losing the election or not being crazy and losing the crazy base - which probably means losing the election. What compounds that is, with the crazy base fired up, the candidate has to be crazy to some extent or the crazy base blocks their nomination, which means they go into the election at least partly crazy and they have to spend considerable effort to back off from craziness, which only further alienates the crazies.

You could be right. They will certainly go for the crazy as much as possible, and that's why Cruz will receive the benefit of all of Trump's ranting for the primary. Crazy is equal parts of advocating untenable plans and hatred for liberals. I believe that hatred will get them to the polls even if their favorite clown isn't on the GOP ticket. Of course, they are still crazy, so it's hard to accurately guess what they might do.

 

[rightwinger]

I'm sure the insiders have a better handle on it than me, but It looks like Trump is firing up the crazy base, and once fired up, they will vote R even after Trump drops out. That leaves Cruz as heir apparent to inherit all of Trumps support without having to say all the crazy things that Trump has already said. If Cruz and the rest of the right wants to, they will be free to court a more moderate constituency knowing that Trump will deliver the crazies on his way out.

Trump is forcing republicans to take a stand on issues they do not want to talk about
They have been kicking immigration reform down the road for three years

Now they have to admit they oppose it

 

[BULLDOG]

I'm sure the insiders have a better handle on it than me, but It looks like Trump is firing up the crazy base, and once fired up, they will vote R even after Trump drops out. That leaves Cruz as heir apparent to inherit all of Trumps support without having to say all the crazy things that Trump has already said. If Cruz and the rest of the right wants to, they will be free to court a more moderate constituency knowing that Trump will deliver the crazies on his way out.

Trump is forcing republicans to take a stand on issues they do not want to talk about
They have been kicking immigration reform down the road for three years

Now they have to admit they oppose it

You could be right, or they could do as most and just not directly acknowledge trumps rantings much either way, and not be pulled into that particular vortex of crazy.

 

[PratchettFan]

I'm sure the insiders have a better handle on it than me, but It looks like Trump is firing up the crazy base, and once fired up, they will vote R even after Trump drops out. That leaves Cruz as heir apparent to inherit all of Trumps support without having to say all the crazy things that Trump has already said. If Cruz and the rest of the right wants to, they will be free to court a more moderate constituency knowing that Trump will deliver the crazies on his way out.

It doesn't work that way. The crazy base doesn't vote republican, it votes crazy. Once you get into the real election they still vote crazy or they do not vote at all. But the crazy base is a small percentage of the electorate and the majority doesn't vote crazy. So the candidate has a choice of being crazy and losing the election or not being crazy and losing the crazy base - which probably means losing the election. What compounds that is, with the crazy base fired up, the candidate has to be crazy to some extent or the crazy base blocks their nomination, which means they go into the election at least partly crazy and they have to spend considerable effort to back off from craziness, which only further alienates the crazies.

You could be right. They will certainly go for the crazy as much as possible, and that's why Cruz will receive the benefit of all of Trump's ranting for the primary. Crazy is equal parts of advocating untenable plans and hatred for liberals. I believe that hatred will get them to the polls even if their favorite clown isn't on the GOP ticket. Of course, they are still crazy, so it's hard to accurately guess what they might do.

That was the thinking in the last election.

 

[NYcarbineer]

One of the B listers on the GOP roster who needs to make a move should come out swinging against Trump and beat on him with everything but the kitchen sink.

 

[tinydancer]

Trump is drawing all the fire away from the other candidates. And that is fabulous because it means that the other candidates can work the GOP primaries pretty well unscathed for a while.

He certainly has the media's knickers in a twist. Actually that's putting it mildly. The Donald has many of the left wing loon commentators in a rabid lather.

Even bad publicity is better than no publicity

When was the last time anyone heard from Carson, Fiorina, Paul or Perry?

The general public has no need to hear from them right now. That's my point.

While Trump is drawing all the wrath of the left wing loons in the media, the other candidates are able to campaign and bring their messages to those who vote in the primaries.

The Trump campaign is an awesome diversionary entity.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Trump is drawing all the fire away from the other candidates. And that is fabulous because it means that the other candidates can work the GOP primaries pretty well unscathed for a while.

He certainly has the media's knickers in a twist. Actually that's putting it mildly. The Donald has many of the left wing loon commentators in a rabid lather.

Even bad publicity is better than no publicity

When was the last time anyone heard from Carson, Fiorina, Paul or Perry?

Perry gave a pretty good interview on MSNBC yesterday I think it was.