Republican Voters NOW SEE Ted Cruz as THEIR LEADER

[Segami]

A Public Policy Polling national poll released today finds that among Republican voters Ted Cruz is now the favorite GOP candidate for President in 2016. The same poll also found that by lopsided margins, Republican voters trust Ted Cruz more than either Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell or House Speaker John Boehner. While Cruz’s faux filibuster stunt was rebuked by fellow GOP Senators, it appears to have won him the hearts and minds of the tea-stained Republican electorate, dominated as it is by staunchly conservative voters. Cruz now leads the GOP field for President according to the PPP poll, garnering 20 percent to 17 percent for runner up Rand Paul. Christ Christie polls at 14 percent followed by Jeb Bush (11 percent), Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan (each at 10 percent). Republicans who identify themselves as “very conservative” support Cruz by a 34 to 17 percent margin over his nearest challenger, Rand Paul.




Perhaps more importantly, Republican voters trust Ted Cruz over Mitch McConnell by a gaudy 49 to 13 margin, and they trust Cruz over John Boehner by a 51 to 20 percent spread. It is clear that the Republican leadership in Congress is distrusted even by Republican voters and that Ted Cruz is earning popularity by challenging the GOP leadership. It is also clear that Republican primary voters have embraced Ted Cruz’s extreme views and his hard line politics and that they have little interest in compromise or effective governance. The shut it down mentality has become a popular position within the GOP voting base, meaning we can expect more brinkmanship legislative stunts by republican politicians trying to curry favor with the far right base that now makes up a major and influential portion of the GOP electorate.




In 2010, Republican leaders did all they could to fire up angry voters to attend town meetings and disrupt proceedings in opposition to the Affordable Care Act and other policies supported by Barack Obama and House Democrats. They helped served up heated rhetoric to gin up aroused conservative voters in order to get them to vote out liberal members of Congress. Of course their overblown rhetoric planted the seeds that helped form the modern Tea Party movement, and now that movement threatens to consume the very Republican leadership that helped create it. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have lost control of the Republican Party and handed its future to hardcore ideologues like Texas Senator Ted Cruz. While Cruz is increasingly popular with Republican voters, his appeal with Independents and Democrats is very thin. Republicans may like his uncompromising rhetoric and his arrogant in your face style, but in a national general election choosing Ted Cruz as the party’s nominee will be a recipe for political disaster. The GOP voters should be warned that they will lose if they go with Cruz. However, since they are not much interested in reality based reasoning, those warnings will almost certainly fall on deaf ears.





http://www.politicususa.com/2013/09/28/republican-voters-ted-cruz-leader.html

[Segami]

1. "...PPP's newest national poll finds..

...Ted Cruz is now the top choice of Republican primary voters to be their candidate for President in 2016. He leads the way with 20% to 17% for Rand Paul, 14% for Chris Christie, 11% for Jeb Bush, 10% each for Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan, 4% for Bobby Jindal, and 3% each for Rick Santorum and Scott Walker...."



http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/09/cruz-emerges-as-gop-leader.html

[The Second Stone]

2. Ted Cruz is the future of the Republican Party and we had best be prepared for it

He is far more intelligent than he lets on and completely without scruples. He is clearly going to be the 2016 nominee. He will be as popular with the right wing rank and file as Reagan was.

Cruz is far more dangerous than Huey Long ever was.

[dmr]

4. I agree, especially with the big money backing he has from the Koch Bros.

and that money backing is what scares the other Republicans. Backing that can either break them or help them - or both.

So we might as well say the Koch Bros are the head of the Republican Party.

As they say: Follow the money ....

[Volaris]

11. THIS.

I concur that he's smarter than he lets on...so much so (in my opinion) that I bet he doesn't even really believe half of what HIS BASE THINKS HE DOES...and that's just the way he wants it. In other words,

he's a smart enough actor to be able to PLAY stupid on television, and that usually takes a VERY smart actor. If he were JUST an actor, I would actually commend him for his performance ability, but since what he is, is an elected leader, what he is doing is incredibly dangerous, and I wish him nothing but utter failure because of it.

[The Second Stone]

14. He creeps me the heck out. He's like Damien from the Omen movies

but a real live politician and not a fiction. This guy scares me in a way that Nixon, Reagan, W or Cheney never has. He's like a slow motion Cuban Missile Crisis.

[Coyotl]

3. The Canadian Goose needs to migrate further south

Doesn't Paraguay need another McCarthyite?

[Douglas Carpenter]

5. In early 1996 Colin Powell was the favorite for the GOP nomination among registered Republicans

There is not just a shift to the right - there is a sea change in how rank and file Republicans think. - Perhaps the Foxification of the conservative movement and the Republicans Party.; This is not the machinery of the conservative establishment - This is the outlook of the vast majority of their rank and file.

If Cruz or Rand Paul becomes the nominee - I wonder how the conservative establishment will react? Reagan made Nixon look reasonable and moderate at least in comparison. Bush Junior made Reagan look reasonable and moderate - at least in comparison. And now Cruz and Paul are making Bush Junior look reasonable and moderate - at last in relative comparison. Considering Cruz just compared the conservative establishment to Nazi appeasers - I can't see how he can walk this back.

[Andy823]

7. They won't be the nominee

The powers that be in the GOP won't let it happen. Rove is already woking on making sure that Jeb gets the nomination, and you are right, Cruz and Paul are making a good case for "Jeb Bush" being the "sane" one in the next primary. Just like the last republican primary with all the nuts made Romney look sane. If Cruz keeps up trying to be the "craziest" of the crazies, he will alienate any sane republican. While the tea party crazy base is needed to win, so are the other republicans.

Just think how insane the debates will be. All Jeb has to do is sit back and look the adult in the room, that also goes for Christie. If I had to be it on who would be the nominee it would be between Jeb and Christie.

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. so far sounding insane has not harmed the leading Republican politicians one little bit. During the

2012 primary season the crazies were always outspent and out organized by Romney - yet one nut right after another kept pulling way ahead of Romney in the polls. Usually it was the one who sounded like the craziest and the least adult in the room. It's hard to imagine the powers of the Republican Party allowing a Cruz or Rand Paul to win the nomination. But with more money and more organization in 2016 and more determination from the Tea Party wing to run a "real conservative" - they could cause a lot of havoc in the GOP - at least I hope so.

[Volaris]

12. And of the two of them, it will be Christie, for the following reason:

it matters not how many times Jeb has to stand on stage and say "I'm not my brother." Even REPUBLICANS know how easy it will be for Dems to utterly DESTROY their candidate, because EVERY TIME he has to say it, it will hammer home the memory of what a total, inept fuckwad Jr. was. While the crazy 'Baggers will not care about this problem one little bit and just blame "the liburl media" for an "unfair" attack (because they're politically inept as well as bat-shit crazy) NOT-completely-politically-stupid GOP-establishment-types will wish to AVOID this attack by any and all means at their disposal.

Cruz can sure as hell play Paul Ryan in the next cycle (that is, he can be an appeal to the TeaBaggers who feel all ignored by the ACTUAL GOP Nominee...AGAIN) but they don't have the chops, the votes or the money to get him nominated to the Top Spot.

As an aside, if IS Jeb's the nominee over there, I want Warren or H. Dean to be his opponent. If it's The Jersey Fatman, I think Hillary...
(but I want Warren or Dean nominated ANYWAY, and that's just my admitted personal bias)

[spanone]

6. the jim jones of the gop

[gopiscrap]

8. good lord, they're a stupid lot

well let him guide the lemmings over a cliff, less republicans to have to deal with!

[rock]

9. And get the same view as everyone but the lead dog

(I don't have to draw you a picture, do I?)

[ChoppinBroccoli]

13. Republicans Have The Attention Span Of A 2-Year-Old

He's the Flavor of the Week. ANY Republican who makes news INSTANTLY shoots to the top of the pecking order for "the next nominee." Remember during 2011 when they had about 38 different "new frontrunners," including Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, and pretty much any right-winger who ever got his 15 minutes of fame that year?

Cruz is nothing more than the latest shiny object to attract their attention. There will be probably 20 more of them before they actually nominate someone.

[B Calm]

15. Great News for the democratic party!