Charles Hurt writing in The Hill
* * *
Real estate mogul Donald Trump has run an outsider's
juggernaut campaign, the likes of which nobody has seen in modern politics.
* I SEEM TO REMEMBER A GUY NAMED PEROT...
(*SHRUG*)
* ANYWAY... NOT NEED TO NIT-PICK; I GET HURT'S POINT.
(*SMILE*)
Democrats publicly say they are thrilled to face him in
the general election. But, privately, they fret that the master marketer and
media maestro is so unpredictable and so original and so fearless that they
just might regret getting the match-up they had hoped for.
* TRUMP WOULD BEAT HILLARY LIKE A BABY SEAL!
(*SMIRK*)
Trump has done all this in the face of unprecedented
opposition from Establishment Republican Party officials and many principled
conservatives who make up the core base of the GOP.
* Er... Um... Uh... IF IT WERE "PRINCIPLED
CONSERVATIVES" MAKING UP THE CORE BASE OF THE GOP WE WOULDN'T BE IN THIS PREDICAMENT, WOULD WE?!
(*SNORT*)
* SERIOUSLY... WHATEVER THIS GUY HURT IS SMOKING... I HOPE IT'S
LEGAL WHEREVER IT IS HE LIVES!
(*SMIRK*)
At this point in the primary cycle, any other candidate
with numbers like Trump's would have been granted "presumptive
nominee" status by party bosses as well as any final remaining active
candidates.
It is not new that Party Establishment types are
terrified of doing anything outside of their regular playbook — like
recognizing the game-changing power of an apolitical populist who is winning
millions of supporters by turning everything upside down. While the media
attention has focused entirely on the exuberant and entertaining traveling
carnival nature of the Trump campaign, this overlooks another, deeper problem
conservatives have today: Senator Ted Cruz.
In the past eight years, no one has captivated the
realistic hopes of conservative constitutionalists the way that Cruz has in
this election. On every single issue of importance to conservatives, Cruz is
right. He is a walking, living, breathing Supreme Court dissent, masterfully
articulated and extensively annotated on paper.
Then, he opens his mouth.
(*PAUSE*)
And people scream.
(*NODDING IN SORROW*)
They run for the exits as if their hair is on fire. They
want to take a shower.
Even hardcore conservatives still stewing over the shabby
defenestration of Robert Bork find Cruz cloying and unctuous. Leading
conservatives who publicly support Cruz's presidential campaign groan in private
when he starts talking.
* FOLKS... WHAT HAVE I BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG...
Cruz may entertain himself by impersonating characters
from "The Simpsons," but it is hard to get out of your mind that Cruz
just might, in fact, be Mr. Burns, with those evil snake eyes and the sharp,
downward curved beak.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Mr. Burns - heartless, robotic, ever-calculating, willing
to do anything to maximize profits at his nuclear power plant.
(*SIGH*)
"Who is that firebrand, Smithers?" you can
almost hear Cruz inquire of a top campaign staffer as he suspiciously eyes
Trump and taps his fingertips together.
(*SNORT FOLLOWED BY A SHRUG OF AGREEMENT*)
Or, maybe he is the unholy spawn of Count Dracula and
"The Penguin" from Batman.
(*LOL*)
So, what, exactly, is the problem with Cruz? Why is he so
terrible?
For starters, his face and natural demeanor appear
bionically opposed to a sunny disposition.
The forced smiles only make him look more demonic.
And because his facial contortions are so clearly faked,
he always looks like he must be lying.
("Lyin' Ted," you might say.)
Then there are the promises he makes and the things he
says. Again and again in recent years, Cruz promised supporters that he would
mount a great filibuster in the Senate and defund ObamaCare. Of course, there
was no hope of success since even if he had miraculously managed to get such
legislation to the president, the president for whom ObamaCare is named most
definitely would have vetoed it. And Cruz knew that even as he repeated his
bold promises to frustrated supporters. Even Dr. Seuss got maligned in the
spectacle.
In the end, Cruz utterly and predictably failed and
turned the anti-ObamaCare effort into something of a mockery.
(That year a kid in my neighborhood showed up for
Halloween dressed as Cruz, carrying a copy of Dr. Seuss's "Green Eggs and
Ham.")
With every such stunt, Cruz's grand promises always
failed. His only success was raising his own profile, raking in piles of
donations and advancing his own professional political career.
(*ANOTHER SIGH*)
(*ANOTHER SAD NOD*)
This is the reason Cruz is so despised on both sides of
the aisle in the U.S. Senate — not because he is some kind of heroic stalwart
standing up the leadership.
* NO. I DISAGREE. CRUZ IS DESPISED BECAUSE IF HE WERE
EVER TO SUCCEED... THESE SCUM WHO PRESENTLY RUN BOTH POLITICAL PARTIES AND HOLD
US ALL FINANCIAL HOSTAGE TO THEIR BORROW AND SPEND CRONY CAPITALISM WOULD BE
OUT IN THE COLD - NO LONGER THE MOVERS, SHAKERS, AND RAINMAKERS THEY ARE NOW.
Cruz is every bit the Harvard master debater, the
professional politician he claims not to be and denounces at every opportunity.
(*SHRUG*)
And if that is not odious enough, he now wears the hat of
an election lawyer as he taunts Trump about his own prowess at using arcane and
arbitrary electoral rules to wheedle convention delegates out of election
losses.
* YEP. IT JUST DOESN'T PLAY. CERTAINLY NOT TO A MASS
AUDIENCE!
Now in desperate collusion with hopeless Ohio Gov. John
Kasich to block Trump from clinching the nomination, Cruz's campaign issued
talking points to supporters, urging them to say: "We never tell voters
who to vote for."
(Really? Isn't that the whole purpose of a campaign?)
(*SMIRK*)
A shameless professional politician capable of such
blatant and ludicrous distortions will soon become indistinguishable from
Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. Lyin' Ted. Crooked Hillary. Is there
any difference?
* YEAH... THERE IS... BUT I GET THE AUTHOR'S POINT.
(*YET ANOTHER DEEP SIGH*)
It is true that Clinton's cackles are like claws on a
chalkboard for even many Democrats. But that visceral, revolting antipathy is
nothing compared to people's reaction to Cruz.
* AGAIN... DISAGREE. (HRC IS FAR, FAR WORSE!)
Even when he says things you agree with, Cruz sounds and
looks like the oiliest money-grubbing television evangelist.
* Um... YEAH... HE KINDA DOES...
(*SHRUG*)
He invokes Almighty God and Jesus Christ at every
campaign event. He talks about praying for this and praying for that and then
undulates about "God's will." He turns his face to heaven and splays
his arms back as if willing to be crucified for his political convictions. He tightens
his fists and brings them to his chin as if in prayer.
After imploring and haranguing and intoning, Cruz drops
into a prayerful whisper, the way preachers do when they are winding up their
sermons. Except Lyin' Ted never seems to get to the end of his sermons. He just
goes on and on and on. For eternity, one might say.
(*SNORT*)
* FOLKS... THIS GUY HURT IS RIGHT ON TARGET WITH HIS
ABOVE COMMENTARY.
One of his most famous surrogates, Glenn Beck, actually
invoked divine intervention in the untimely death of Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia as an altar-call to vote for Cruz.
* HE DID! GOD HELP US... HE DID!
All this desperate sermonizing, as if God is sitting on
his golden throne in the clouds looking down at His errant creation with all
man's problems and for some reason is rooting for Cruz to win the Republican
nomination for president of the United States of America.
"I will get that Donald Trump. Finally!" God
grumbles, clinching his giant Michelangelo fist.
"Two Corinthians," He scoffs under his divine
breath. "'The Art of the Deal' is not even a close second!"
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