It was an odd mistake, on Cruz’s part, to tell a lie in front of the person whose abeyance on this issue he needs if he is to move on, especially since Carson, who is usually somewhat cryptic, had hurt written on his face.
.. The other candidates seem to have become franchisees of Trump’s brand of personal attack. He just sits back and collects the political equivalent of licensing fees. What may be more damaging to the G.O.P. is that Trump’s ideology seems to have been franchised as well. The hyper-nationalism, the insinuations of treachery at the highest level of government, the disdain for civil rights and international accords, the fetishizing of military force, and the raw bigotry—all have somehow become part of the Republican Party’s normal back-and-forth.
.. Rubio’s talking point, for example, was striking in its repetition, but all the more so in its content. When he said that Obama knew what he was doing, he meant that “all this damage that he’s done to America is deliberate. This is a President that’s trying to redefine this country.”
.. Cruz said that he would, although he thought that the torturers should be senior people—those at “low levels” handled it badly.
Cruz, Rubio, and the Moral Bankruptcy of Progressive Identity Politics
Because white progressives have engineered a cultural system where black and Latino politicians deserve respect only if they get with the progressive program — the entire progressive program.
.. Just ask formerly pro-life Jesse Jackson. Not even marching with Martin Luther King Jr. could protect him from the intolerant demands of progressive sexual revolutionaries. He had to switch sides.
The ‘Establishment’ Nonsense
Cruz may be anti-establishment but he’s a principled conservative, while Trump has no coherent political philosophy, no core beliefs, at all. Trump offers barstool eruptions and whatever contradictory “idea” pops into his head at the time, such as “humane” mass deportation, followed by mass amnesty when the immigrants are returned to the United States.
.. His actual platform is all persona — the wonders that will emanate from his own self-proclaimed strength, toughness, brilliance, money, his very yugeness.
Trump’s is faith-based politics of the Latin American caudillo variety. “At the [Sarah] Palin rally,” reports John McCormack of The Weekly Standard, “Trump promised he would localize education. ‘How?’ shouted one man in the crowd. ‘Just you watch,’ Trump replied.” Meaning: I have no idea. Just trust me.
.. He reasonably calculates that his hard-edged conservatism sells best when presented not as pristine ideology but as a revolt against entrenched interests.
.. To imagine, however, that his railing against “the Washington cartel” makes him a Trumpian brother-in-arms is to mistake tactics for strategy, style for substance.
The result is a three-way fight between Trump’s personalized strongman populism and two flavors of conservatism — Marco Rubio’s more mainstream version and Cruz’s more uncompromising take-no-prisoners version.
Marco Rubio: “I don’t think you can go to church too often”
Marco Rubio’s line “I don’t think you can go to church too often” might well have been the campaign mantra. Mr. Rubio was first christened a Roman Catholic, baptized again at the age of 8 into the Mormon Church, and now attends a Southern Baptist megachurch with his wife on Saturdays and Catholic Mass on Sundays.