Related links: Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio brawled over national security, and it turned into a free-for-allDaaaang! Ted Cruz started a BAR BRAWL with Marco Rubio at the GOP Debate over the NSA!!
CRUZ MARCO ROUND TWO!! This time it’s personal…
BOOM! Ted Cruz: ISIS jihadis need to know when they join ISIS they are signing their death warrant!
Ted Cruz gets it RIGHT on dictators in the Middle East; Rubio tries to defend Libyan intervention
In Las Vegas Debate, a Rubio-Cruz Showdown Takes Center Stage
Cruz v. Rubio on Surveillance
Ted Cruz YouTube
Other mentionables (I'll get back to this in a moment to drive home another point):
Related link: Ted Cruz has the Line of the Night during Fifth Republican DebateTed Cruz NAILS IT on why he disagrees with Donald Trump on Muslim ban
WHOA: Trump GOES BACK on calling Cruz a maniac, says he has the right temperament!
Preceding the debate, Erick Erickson over at RedState notably gave even assessments on the positives of both Cruz and Rubio:
Here’s Why You Should Vote for … Ted CruzRelated links: Winners and Losers in Tonight’s CNN/Salem Debate
Here’s Why You Should Vote for … Marco Rubio
But there's some pretty important understanding to last night's dust up between these two candidates, particularly in regards to accusation that the Rubio camp has been lobbing out there over the past few weeks concerning Cruz's immigration record. Alinsky tactics have been in full play on this.
TRS: This isn’t the first time we’ve reported this. But considering all the misinformation and nonsense being pushed by a lot of Rubio supporters who refuse to be intellectually honest about this, I decided to republish this.Cruz stood with Jeff Sessions, while Rubio led the Dems' push for amnesty. It IS that simple.
This video is at the heart of the misinformation:
Amanda Carpenter, who used to work for Ted Cruz in the Senate, explains why Ted Cruz ‘proposed’ the legalization of illegals during the Gang of 8 bill, as you see in the video.
In short, it wasn’t that Cruz wanted to legalize illegals, but rather Cruz was brilliantly exposing how the Gang of 8 bill was all about a path to citizenship and not fixing the immigration system and border enforcement as the Gang of 8 would have had you believe.
Rubio folks should be intellectually honest about this and stop smearing Ted Cruz. It’s just dumb and tiresome.Amanda Carpenter: "Can we talk about the Cruz/Rubio differences on immigration? I was there in the Senate when it all went down. I understand why the Rubio camp wants to say they have the same position, but it's blatantly false. There's nothing slippery about Cruz.
Ask yourself this: If Cruz had the same position on a path to citizenship, why would he try to kill Rubio's Gang of 8 bill?! Cruz took on an incredible amount of political risk working to stop amnesty. I was there. Everyone was against us. Cruz introduced amendments specifically designed to expose the fact that all the Gang of 8 cared about was a path to citizenship.
During debate, the Gang wanted everyone to think it was about fixing the system and border enforcement. No, it was about a path to citizenship. So Cruz said ok, here are some amendments that do everything EXCEPT a path to citizenship. And the Gang killed them exposing the big hoax. Cruz's work was essential in proving that the Gang bill was only about a path to citizenship. He was successful! And to say now that somehow his work killing the bill is somehow a sign of support for it is well...."slippery".
Lastly, if you question Cruz's dedication on stopping amnesty, look at his work to defund Obama's executive amnesty. Cruz and Lee demanded a vote on it, throwing the Senate into a rare Sat. session last December. Everyone in DC was FURIOUS."
Now, circling back to those previous mentionables, there's a reason behind some's bewilderment as to Cruz's soft approach with Trump while going after Rubio. This is as much about the game of politics as it is about the need to winnow the field...
Hopefully, you can go back through, click on some of the links provided, and check out all the action for yourselves. But this should give a good indication of where this dust-up derived.RedState: Ted Cruz knows RedState. He sees Dan McLaughlin saying “Keep calm. It won’t be Trump.” He sees Erick Erickson saying the race will come down to Cruz v Rubio. So if these men are right, Cruz’s strategy now must prepare for the fight with Rubio, not a fight with Trump. Everything Ted Cruz has done over the last month comports with this reasoning.
Ted Cruz is doing everything he can to avoid a fight with Trump because he knows that will only sour Trump’s supporters on him. Leon Wolf think Cruz sounds weak, but to Trump’s masses of supporters, Cruz sounds like the only guy in the room who ‘gets it.’ Cruz sounds like someone who wants to Make DC Listen, rather than paper over the GOP’s and the country’s problems.
I admit, it’s frustrating seeing Cruz treat Trump like an irrelevant nothing to be petted on the head, his supporters ripe to be lured away, while he turns his sharpest political rhetoric against Marco Rubio. Like Cruz, Rubio is a long time friend of RedState, a speaker at the first Gathering. I would be thrilled to see either man be President. Seeing them in a rhetorical war with each other pains me.
But if it is to be Ted Cruz versus Marco Rubio, then each man must do what it takes to win. Ted Cruz is already so hated by the establishment, that he knows they will back Marco Rubio by default in order to defeat Cruz. He knows Rubio is a great public speaker, and will have the ability to win supporters with his charming appeals to the problems ordinary Americans face, and the solutions that conservative ideas provide. So Cruz has to get the votes any way he can, and that means find the people who are angry.
Cruz must find the people who are ready to light torches and march on Washington. There aren’t enough votes left among the other mainstream candidates in the race for Cruz to appeal only to them, and to win. So Cruz must break the Cordon Sanitaire that the Acela set wants to apply to Donald Trump and his supporters, and he must do the same to the wall the hawkish/PNAC wing of the party wants to build around Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and his supporters.
Ted Cruz wants to win. As American Majority trains conservatives across the country, if you want to run for office, count the votes it will take to win, then find a way to win those votes. Ted Cruz knows his best and perhaps only path to victory is to unite RedState-style conservatives, with the backers of Rand Paul and Donald Trump. It’s uncomfortable for some of us to watch, but we know Cruz and can deal with that. He needs to make people comfortable with him who otherwise might not be. That’s how you build a coalition and win an election.
The establishment routinely tells conservatives what we want to hear, in order to win our votes so they can achieve their ends. Ted Cruz is playing the same game, in order to fight back against them. It’s messy, but war is hell.
Related links: Rubio's foolishness
A Stark Choice: Ted Cruz’s Jacksonian Americanism vs. Marco Rubio’s Wilsonian Internationalism
ADDENDUM: Levin had a LOT to say about much of this today...
Related links: Smearing Ted Cruz as an isolationist is absurdOn Wednesday’s Mark Levin show, The person under attack today by neocons and phony conservatives is Ted Cruz and it’s because they fear him. They want anyone but a conservative or an outsider. Conservatives have had enough of the chorus of neocons, quasi, and newbie conservatives attacking Cruz. RINO Republicans are the ones responsible for delivering elections to President Obama by jumping on the Mitt Romney and John McCain bandwagon. Also, America doesn’t need to be involved in every single civil war in the Middle East. America doesn’t have the ability to change the world and can’t change backward societies. What we need is Reagan’s foreign policy, a policy of prudence instead of another “Pickett’s Charge”. ... Later, the NSA metadata program is illegal and violates the Patriot Act. It is not authorized by Federal law and should not be allowed unless approved by Congress. What law enforcement needs to do is legally profile.
Setting the Record Straight on the USA Freedom Act
Republican leaders should worry about themselves, not Trump
Feud between Rubio and Cruz rages on
Also, Amanda Carpenter wrote a great piece Thursday morning asking, 'Who To Believe? Rubio or Cruz?' providing more detail about Cruz’s opposition to the Gang of 8 bill and his subsequent amendment offered that Rubio and crew are trying to deceive people about (h/t: TheRightScoop)...
What Carpenter points out is that Cruz didn’t propose 'legalization' because it was ALREADY IN THE BILL! His amendment merely stripped out the path to citizenship, and Rubio's Gang of 8 would have none of that, thus revealing what the Florida Senator was actually pushing.Marco Rubio supported a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants; that is known. And Rubio is now seeking to undermine Ted Cruz’s credibility on immigration issues by saying Cruz supports a path to legalization for illegal immigrants.
So, who to believe? Rubio, whose campaign is working hard to knock holes in Cruz’s record, or the record of the man himself?
At the top level, this much should be clear to anyone. Rubio’s Gang of Eight legislation, which included a path to citizenship and was supported by many Democrats, the White House, and moderate Republicans, was defeated. Why? Because Ted Cruz and others, such as Jeff Sessions, Mike Lee, and a vast array of conservative activists worked together to expose the fact that it was an amnesty bill and kill it.
Rubio was for it, Cruz was against it.
People forget that the Gang of Eight bill contained both legalization and a path to citizenship. The key to taking down the bill was to demonstrate it would provide citizenship to millions of illegal aliens. Which also took down the path to legalization that Rubio claims Cruz wanted all along.
In the course of killing the bill, Cruz proposed a series of amendments in committee designed to make clear the legislation did contain a path to citizenship, which many supporters of the legislation did not want to admit.
Related links: C’mon conservatives, stop smearing Ted Cruz on his immigration stance!
CRUZ: PERMANENTLY BLOCK ILLEGALS FROM WELFARE (5/9/13)
UPDATE: via TRS...
Ted Cruz talked to the press today explaining his poison pill strategy from 2013, saying that what is going on now is the establishment striking back against him because he helped stop them from getting the amnesty they wanted.Related links: Jeff Sessions: Ted Cruz stood with ME against Gang of 8 bill
He also pointed out that both he and Marco Rubio promised voters that if they were elected they would lead the fight against amnesty when they got to Washington. But come 2013, he said, the both made very different decisions. Yeah, that’s putting it mildly.
Jack Welch: ‘Ted Cruz Is Speaking the Truth’
