Ted Cruz could indeed win the Republican nomination

I know that lots of people don't believe that, but I sure do. Why? The Republican base, McCain and Romney. The Republican base votes. It has lots of teabaggers and teabagger types in it. Two so-called moderates (and holy shit, they are beginning to look like moderates compared to the the Cruz-Lee types) that lost, have convinced the out of touch republican base that they lost because they were two moderate. And who, in the Republican party will run against Cruz? Rubio? Rand? How much better are they? Can you think of a single non batshit wingnut who will run for the repub nomination? Jebbie? I don't see it. Republican Governors? Chris Christie? The base loathes him and the base votes in primaries. I don't believe there is any way that someone like Christie or Jeb can be nominated with how the base is currently constituted. There would have to be a complete blood bath.

From Michael Tomasky over at the Daily Beast:




Did you catch Ted Cruz’s numbers in that Pew poll that came out this week? You may not have, because there were a few other things going on. So take a guess as to his favorable ratings among Tea Party people. I can tell you that 18 percent expressed no opinion, so the numbers add up to 82. So, 65-17, 68-14? Could he possibly have topped 70?

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He’ll spend the rest of 2014 guiding the Tea Party like Columbus on the Santa Maria. Rand Paul will be back there on the Niña, and farther back, Marco Rubio on the Pinta, straining to catch enough wind to keep up. But everyone will know who’s holding the compass.

The elections will be crucial. If the GOP loses control of the House because of perceived Tea Party looniness, Cruz will be blamed and held accountable. As for the Senate, it’ll be just slightly more nuanced. We’re seeing now that all these Tea Party people are going to challenge establishment Republicans. If some of them win their primaries but lose the general to a Democrat—if, say, Nancy Mace, the Citadel grad, beats Lindsey Graham but then loses in the general, giving South Carolina its first non-racist Democratic senator since Fritz Hollings, who’s probably the only non-racist Democratic senator the state has ever had—Cruz will, again, be blamed and held accountable. But say Mace wins, and a few others do too, even if the GOP doesn’t take control of the Senate. And say the Republicans hold the House. That’s a slightly ambiguous result. But any ambiguous result is easy for a demagogue to spin into a great victory. It’s precisely the kind of thing demagogues do best.

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If the results a year from now don’t give the establishment the excuse it needs to bury him, Cruz will be off to the races. And then, Armageddon will come. To whom will the establishment hand the silver cross and vial of holy water? Chris Christie? Jeb Bush? South Dakota Senator John Thune, who offends no one (not yet, anyway) and who quietly voted for the deal to reopen the government and avoid default?

This will be a war. And it just might be a war the extremists will win. Establishments have power and money, and it is true that Republican voters have typically, after all the noise, gone in the establishment direction (McCain, Romney). But the insurgents have been advancing the beachhead, and unless they’re pushed back once and for all, it’s only a matter of time. But an epic battle looms. I cry for what these maniacs are doing to my country, but at the same time I plan on enjoying every minute of it.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/18/the-ted-cruz-armageddon-is-coming.html