https://www.texasobserver.org/inconsistent-showing-democratic-primary-raises-questions-beto-orourke/ https://www.texastribune.org/2018/03/06/ted-cruz-beto-orourke-us-senate-texas-primary-2018/ After last night, I think Cruz kills Beto and it will not be close. I am just unsure how far behind Beto will finish. I think there is potential here for this to be worse than the Wendy Davis run, at least by percentage points. For reference, in 2014, Abbott received 59.27% of the vote and Wendy Davis received 38.90% of the vote. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...bf9d112159c_story.html?utm_term=.8450c38621a8 ^ meanwhile, the national media seems to think Texas is turning purple. Jon Stewart called the national media and Texas democrats “delusional” for thinking Texas is turning purple on his live show at SXSW in Austin in 2014. History appears to be repeating itself, but things can change between now and November. P.S. “Every woman has a right to shoes” was the best Wendy Davis bumper sticker, and I have not seen any bumper sticker game from Beto yet.
I disagree. Cruz will cruise in this Republican state, but Beto is a charismatic candidate and Trump hatred has energized Democrats, so he will do better than Wendy. I see Cruz as uncompromising and impossibly full of himself. There will be costs for intentionally gumming up the works. He won't lose in a one party state, but in a two party state the strident ideologue would be in trouble.
I do agree that outside of the most conservative one party states in the Union (Texas, South Carolina and probably Oklahoma at third), Cruz would be in trouble. It will be interesting to see what happens, but I was suprised by Beto only getting 60% of the vote yesterday. I will also suprised at how easily Cruz crushed his moderate challengers in the primary.
I think Cruz will win and win decisively, but I don't think he'll beat O'Rourke as badly as "The Wheelchair" beat "Abortion Barbie" for a few reasons. First, 2014 was an off-year election with a Democrat in the White House, which boosted Republican turnout. The reverse phenomenon will be happening this year. Second, The Wheelchair is a more popular and less polarizing candidate than Ted Cruz, so he gets more crossover support and motivates Democrats to vote against him less. Third, O'Rourke is a better candidate than Davis was. He's not famous for being associated with abortion, and he's "Hispanic-ish." Since he's a Democrat, he'll be allowed to play the "I'm a Mexican" card when it's convenient and talk like a white guy when he's talking to white liberals in Austin and Dallas.
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t Beto 0% hispanic? Edit: https://www.texastribune.org/2013/07/24/city-el-paso-lacks-voice-hispanic-caucus/ ^ This article says he is not.
You're not wrong. Careful. I didn't say he could play the "Mexican Card." I said he could play the "I'm a Mexican Card." Those are two different cards. The "Mexican Card" is just the Latino version of the basic ethnic identity politics that Democrats have played for decades. The "I'm a Mexican Card" is when you're permitted to expressly or impliedly claim to be the culturally authentic Mexican in order to claim to be in touch with Latinos. You use your Latino-nickname, speak Spanish in public, get a tan so you don't look as white, etc. He'll play that card with Cruz, and the media will allow him to frame himself as authentic Hispanic and Cruz as the immigrant hater who can't relate to Latinos because he's a cultural white guy. The two cards often go together but not always. For example, obviously, Hillary Clinton played the Mexican Card, but she couldn't play the I'm a Mexican Card. She couldn't fake it well enough. O'Rourke can.
Is any elected official trying to stake out a position more hostile to immigration than Ted Cruz's? Maybe he doesn't "hate" dreamers, but is there any evidence he feels any sympathy at all for their plight? Anti immigration is very important to the folks who vote in Republican Primaries. I know of no candidate more aligned with that base than Cruz.
Like Phil said, I think you missed my point. But either way, is it anti-Latino or less "authentically Latino" to be against legalizing Dreamers? Is it even anti-immigration to be against legalizing Dreamers? I don't see why any of that has to be the case. Personally, I'm for legalizing Dreamers who don't have criminal records, but it has nothing to do with liking Latinos or being culturally Latino. Ethnically and culturally, I'm miles away from being Latino. I'm not Catholic. I don't listen to Latin music, and I speak no Spanish beyond what you'd see on a Mexican restaurant's menu. Do I "like" Latinos more than Ted Cruz? I don't know. I like some Latinos and dislike others just like I like some non-Hispanic white people and dislike others. It's about smart policy and has nothing to do with liking anybody or identifying with them.
Yeah, I am pretty sure he media will describe Ted Cruz as anti-immigrant and culturally white. No doubt the media fiends will also try to give me the impression that Miley Cyrus and Madonna are immodest.
Believe it or not, it is possible to take a position without regard to liking or disliking somebody. Consider Barry Goldwater. He opposed the Civil Rights Act, yet nobody who actually knew him thought he was a racist or was unsympathetic to blacks? Why? Because the Act was inconsistent with his libertarianism. He opposed it on principle and with no contempt for anybody. Likewise, it's possible to oppose legalizing Dreamers without disliking Latinos and without disliking immigrants. Again, I disagree with Cruz on the Dreamers. And that isn't personal either.
When will some enterprising reporter give Beto a spanish test like some liberal jackass reporter tried to pull on Ted Cruz 6 years ago? The ljr also asked Cruz to name his favorite Cuban foods, which Cruz was able to do quickly. I think Beto would say his favorite dish was a beefy tostada.
Not to be confused with Chief Rehabilitation Officer Beef Supreme...although who knows...that might get him some extra votes.
As a candidate, Cruz's policy perspectives are really more of an issue than how he feels deep in his heart.
Yes, I know, and I think he's wrong. However, he's not going to be treated as simply being wrong. He's going to be treated as a bad person or "less Latino" because of it. It's's the same rap that black conservatives get. Tim Scott doesn't just have a difference of opinion with liberal blacks. He's an Uncle Tom - a sellout who's rejecting his true principles to curry favor with white people. And he's not an authentic black person because of his policy beliefs. It's an attempt to delegitimize his beliefs and shame other blacks who agree with him.
Oh my goodness. You mean people out there villify people who run for office. Good thing folks in one party are completely above that sort of thing. Gotta go now and have my child put up her abortion barbie close the book she was reading on "the most divisive president in US history."
Is that the attitude you had when people were calling Obama a Muslim and saying he was born in Kenya? What about when you saw stuff like this? Or this. Or this. Of course, these memes weren't put out by Obama's actual political opponents but by dumbasses on the internet. But what if they were? What if Romney or McCain had put these out or retweeted them? Under your mentality, this is just stuff to shrug off and dismiss as part of the game. The point is that not all attacks are equal. Invoking identity politics to attack an opponent should be off limits in a civil society. It shouldn't be illegal, of course, but it should be condemned by fair minded adults.
I didn't give a lot of creedence to that stuff and shrugged it off as the work of extremist right wing nutcases. But hey, one of the guys leading the charge on the "born in Kenya" stuff is President of the United States, so it's not like that was too far out there for a significant portion of the Republican Party.
Also, a medium I've been instructed on another thread that is fair and mainstream had endless panel discussions on the topic of the alleged Kenyan birth. This the same network who in about 10 minutes after they learned that Ted Cruz had a actual birth situation parallel to the alleged Obama birth circumstances quickly told us that it didn't matter, so long as the mother was an American citizen.
This seems like a good time to remind everyone that Trump also claimed that Ted Cruz’s dad killed JFK.
Intersectionality at its core. You are defined by your group and not yourself as an individual. Your worth is defined by how closely you conform to the norm of your group. Except in the case of white people, in which case it works in reverse I think. To be fair, Cruz's situation was a lot more clear, and easier to deal with. There were some weird things going with Obama's narrative, much of which he created himself by trying to portray himself as Kenyan earlier in his life before he realized he might want to run for president.
Yeah, well just after Obama's first election as President the Republican Governor of Hawaii went and looked at the records and said basically that Obama was born in the United States and there is nothing to see here. Yet Trump, Joe Arpiao and Fox New continued with the Kenyan Birth narrative for 3-4 years. But Cruz, truly was born the son of a non-US citizen father while his mother was in Canada. Does the fact that Canada is in North America make a big difference, legally?
I didn't say anything about whether some people kept going on about after the governor looked at the certificate. I'm not debating that, or when the discussion should have been dropped. I'm just saying that there were never conflicting accounts or mixed signals about Cruz' situation. It was what it was, and no one ever disputed the facts of it. The Obama situation had some weird stuff about it, that's just a fact. The town in Kenya where Obama's grandmother lives has a sign that literally says "Birthplace of Barak Obama." (I have a missionary friend who has seen the sign, taken pictures of it, and talked to his grandmother.) Jackets of books he wrote called him Kenyan. That doesn't mean it's true and I'm not saying it is. I'm saying there were plenty of loose ends that provided ammunition for people to speculate about. With Cruz, there was no speculation, it was simply "this is his situation. Is it constitutional or not?" And it was pretty easy to show that yes, it was. You're claiming that the two situations were perfectly parallel, and I'm saying there were significant differences. That's all.
That's the point. You dismissed it, but you didn't consider it legitimate political dialogue. So what? Under your standard, that's just part of the game, not something to be considered a shame or remarkable. Why is this relevant?
And not to necessarily hold Fox up as some great bastion of journalism, but the point that you're referencing specifically said that specific parts of Fox News programming were more fair than what's on CNN. I don't think anyone has said that Fox News overall as a network was "mainstream."
No it's a damned shame. I'm not the referee. As in football, what works, gets copied. I thought we were talking about people getting screwed over by media. Maybe I'm having trouble with my attention span.
