On Monday, Iowa Republicans will cast the most impactful Presidential caucus vote that they’ve ever made. Some will try to downplay the importance, but the ebb and flow of the 2016 election will tilt dramatically based on whether Iowans decide they want the salesman Donald Trump or the statesman Ted Cruz.
We’re seeing a perfect storm that was brewed just prior to the Iowa caucuses that is attempting to take Cruz down. This has been so universal in its scope that one might look at it from a 30,000-foot view and believe that it was coordinated. It has nothing tangible to latch onto but has still been able to cast doubts on Cruz at a time when conservatives, Christians, and pragmatic moderate Republicans should be coalescing around him.
- Small government conservatives should be realizing that Cruz is the first like-minded candidate since Ronald Reagan who actually has a chance of winning the nomination and the Presidency. Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, and Rand Paul supporters should make their votes count towards the cause of bringing conservatism back to the White House.
- Christians should wholeheartedly embrace that a true Evangelical with a proven record of defending religious liberties against an activist Supreme Court can actually be our nominee. Ben Carson, for all of his great qualities, simply doesn’t have the experience to fight those battles or to take down Trump. Thankfully, he will make a great Surgeon General for Cruz when Obamacare is finally repealed.
- Pragmatic moderate Republicans should realize that the Establishment’s failures since 1992 have yielded four losses to liberal Democrats. The two victories by George W. Bush will be turned against moderate Republicans by Trump who has openly attacked Bush since 2003. This means that Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and John Kasich will not be able to defeat him. Their supporters should rightly see Cruz as their only hope to stop him.
The perfect storm is trying to convince Iowans that none of this is true. They are painting Ted Cruz is so many different colors for a reason. When the cacophony of accusations and mudslinging overpowers the message of proper conservative values, we’re left with the type of election chaos that we’ll be seeing at caucus. It’s going to be difficult to hear the truth when so much spin-doctoring is taking place, but the consistent voice of stability and leadership must be allowed to have its say.
Cruz is being attacked from every angle. As Michael Warren from the Weekly Standard noted, it’s Cruz versus everybody.else. They are using attack angles with different end goals but with the unified temporary goal of taking Cruz down. The Trump campaign is doing what they’ve always done by getting as ludicrous as possible to cast doubt on Cruz with everything from the silly birther idea to the concept that he’s too wacko to be in the White House. The other campaigns are attacking Cruz on more mainstream issues, but their arguments are hampered by Cruz’s record of consistency. Then, there’s the media itself which perceives Cruz as a threat to their desire of having Trump as the nominee so they can keep a Democrat in the White House. Finally, we have the Republican Establishment itself which is arguably more fearful of a Cruz administration than a Democratic administration.
In Iowa, Cruz and his supporters are being put on an island with the rest of the players taking shots at them from the surrounding sea. Some would see this as unfair. We see it as an opportunity to shine. This is why the real question for Iowans remains: do you vote for the salesman or the statesman?
The Salesman Donald Trump
Never in the history of Presidential politics has a candidate been so adept at the art of the sale. This is ironic because we are currently seeing the results of the second best salesman to make his pitch for the office. President Obama is a master salesman as well, but Trump is better. Obama sold hope and change while Trump is selling anger and winning. Both are powerful, but Trump’s pitch is missing one thing that Obama’s did not: universal appeal.
Trump’s message resonates with angry Republicans. It gives them a way to vent their frustrations that have been accumulating for the last seven years whether it pertains to immigration, Muslims, or the economy. This is great for winning a Republican nomination. It’s disastrous in a general election because the majority of Americans aren’t looking for the type of rhetoric that Trump espouses.
His biggest strength is that he recognizes the reality that American politics hinges on promises whether they’re tenable or not. Hyperbole works wonders in sales and political campaigns. Bigger is better. If he thinks he can build a pretty good wall that’s not too expensive and won’t be an eyesore, he’ll present it as a wonderful wall that will look beautiful and will be paid for by Mexico. In other words, what he does if he gets to the White House won’t have to match what he says on the campaign trail because very few politicians keep their promises anyway. If you’re going to lie, you’ve got to lie big.
Calvin Coolidge kept his campaign promises. John F. Kennedy kept his campaign promises. Ronald Reagan kept his campaign promises. Ted Cruz kept his campaign promises in the Senate and will do so again as President.
One thing that everyone considering Trump should understand is that he’s been here before several times. He’s pitched his abilities in real estate and entertainment as reasons why he would be successful in other endeavors. He pitched his way into the airline industry. Trump Air failed in less than three years. He pitched his way into guiding the USFL. They went from thriving and rising to a catastrophic failure based solely on his directions. He pitched his way into a huge mortgage endeavor. Trump Mortgage was on of the biggest debacles leading up to the recession. Time and time again, people have listened to his sales pitch. Time and time again, those people have been hurt by their choice. It wasn’t Trump who was hurt the four times that his sales pitches turned into bankruptcies.
The portion of this article pointing to reasons to not vote for Trump could easily be turned into a book, but we’ll leave it here for you to do your own research.
President Obama sold Americans on emotion. Trump is doing the same thing. How gullible are we?
The Statesman Ted Cruz
In the other corner, we have a man who has spent most of his adult life trying to change things in Washington DC. It wasn’t in his victories but in his failures that we get to see what molded Ted Cruz into the statesman that he is today.
Whether it’s working on the George W. Bush campaign to solidify his Presidency or taking on opponents to the Constitution at the Supreme Court as Texas Solicitor General, Cruz has learned what it takes to get things done in DC. Those lessons yielded a sad reality that could have derailed him before he even ran for the Senate: getting things done in Washington DC often means making deals that hurt Americans. Thankfully, he chose to stay the course through integrity to prove that there’s a better way.
We could have seen a very different Ted Cruz today if the realities of DC politics changed him. Believe it or not, there are plenty of people who go into DC with the right ideas and the right heart, but it changes people. We’ve seen this very clearly with Rubio who won his Senate seat on the backs of the Tea Party and an anti-amnesty platform but who turned away from both when political expediency reared its ugly head.
Cruz learned all of this over the last three years when he chose the tough road of keeping his campaign promises and following the path that was best for Americans. It has made him a pariah among his colleagues in the Senate. If you want to make the Republican Establishment upset, all you have to do is keep your campaign promises and call out those who don’t. They hate that.
Rather than going into a long list of reasons why Ted Cruz should earn the votes of every Republican in Iowa and America, I’ll sum it up in one sentence:
A #salesman is loved in DC because he makes big promises. A #statesman is hated in DC because he keeps his promises.#DumpTrump#Cruz2016
— JD Rucker (@0boy) January 31, 2016
The fact that nearly everyone in Washington DC and the mainstream media is against Ted Cruz should be a clear indicator to Iowa Republicans that he’s the right guy for the job. The people they hate the most are conservatives that keeps promises.
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