With Cruz having this whole 'Huey Long of the right' thing going on [I guess the entire ranting right wing radio world would stand in as his Father Coughlin] - given this and Cruz's very clear intention to go to war on conservative common sense [just as FDR wasn't left wing enough for Long even though he had a communist in his cabinet whom he'd eventually set a heartbeat away from the presidency, so too with Cruz merely being opposed to Obamacare just isn't good enough - you have to hate it and be willing to sacrifice the ideologically impure on the altar of your righteous rage] - given all that, when can we expect a lion of the reviled right wing establishment to step up and seriously take the man on before he destroys the GOP and for all intents and purposes inaugurates Hillary as the de facto next president? Jeb Bush made a tentative effort yesterday at push back - but it's gonna take more than that. I'd be very surprised if Christie is not sharpening some verbal knives. I know these guys are worried about making themselves the target of the enraged uber right come primary season, but that carnage is coming regardless, Cruz has made it clear he's out for blood and there's nothing and no one he won't throw under the bus if it serves to glorify he and his cause - so way I see it you might as well go out and meet the challenge head on and thereby clearly establish yourself as the electable choice and Cruz as the utterly unelectable charlatan.
[of course this is the battle that goes on between base and so called establishment during every primary season - but I think there could be differences this time - I think there's a possibility Cruz becomes so popular with the base - think intelligent version of Palin - that he could push all the other base favorites off to the side, which means the base vote is not split which makes it much more difficult for a moderate to slip in - so there's that. But I also think Cruz is really going to go to town with the 'ideological purity' nonsense and will hammer home idea that anyone who doesn't think and talk and act like him is a 'coward' etc etc - we already saw a preview of that rhetoric in the shutdown farce so I think it's gonna prove important to confront the boldness of that charge with equal boldness - make argument that what Cruz is promoting is nothing more than the same partisan absolutism that Obama peddles - make argument country cannot be effectively governed that way, indeed was specifically designed so as not to be governed that way - make argument that you're all about governing the country as a whole, that that is the only way America's true potential can be unburdened from the dysfunction hobbling it now - I think Christie is well positioned to make that argument and has the personality and media savvy to make it forcefully]
[of course this is the battle that goes on between base and so called establishment during every primary season - but I think there could be differences this time - I think there's a possibility Cruz becomes so popular with the base - think intelligent version of Palin - that he could push all the other base favorites off to the side, which means the base vote is not split which makes it much more difficult for a moderate to slip in - so there's that. But I also think Cruz is really going to go to town with the 'ideological purity' nonsense and will hammer home idea that anyone who doesn't think and talk and act like him is a 'coward' etc etc - we already saw a preview of that rhetoric in the shutdown farce so I think it's gonna prove important to confront the boldness of that charge with equal boldness - make argument that what Cruz is promoting is nothing more than the same partisan absolutism that Obama peddles - make argument country cannot be effectively governed that way, indeed was specifically designed so as not to be governed that way - make argument that you're all about governing the country as a whole, that that is the only way America's true potential can be unburdened from the dysfunction hobbling it now - I think Christie is well positioned to make that argument and has the personality and media savvy to make it forcefully]
