Poll: Virginia GOP voters will abandon Trump if he wins nomination

I agree, mezurak. The parties should pay for their own nomination process and the state can foot the bill for the general.

David, Cruz will in my opinion never see the required delegate count to over come his shortfall. This seems to be a hope of many conservatives and they can’t accept the possibility that a drawn out, inconclusive floor duel between a close Trump and a more distant Cruz (delegate wise) serves no winning purpose besides enhancing the more frequently heard argument of late to walk in an outside candidate more palatable to the establishment agenda. It’s quite Machiavellian in fact if you can appreciate the employment of cunning and duplicity in political statecraft (I for one don’t).

The delegate count just doesn’t work for him and I for one believe he realizes that fact which is disappointing to me. The parties’ establishment wing hates Cruz more then Trump and its not the conservatives that will be back loading the primary delegate pool with credentialed convention attendees that are willing to be “flexible” in outer roll calls in a contested event, it’s the state parties. We will see who is right or wrong this summer but I will go on record to state if they can thwart Trump early on in a close but still deficient delegate count roll call process Cruz will still never see the nomination and convention chair Paul Ryan and his establishment colleagues will be sitting in the catbird seat.

I can’t see that happening.

I believe you may have a reading comprehension issue as I’ve never stated at any time on this blog on any other writing I do that I am a dedicated Trump supporter. I believe you may well be that case in point regarding many Cruz supporters comprehending your environment in an echo chamber of your own preconceptions.

lol, shades of McCarthyism alive and well at the Bull Elephant

“At least a Cruz nomination has the added benefit of a proven conservative and proven fighter who will not schmooze and fold into the Uniparty, and may at least be able to steer the party back to its oppositional, conservative heritage”.

I truly wish I could share your and many others conviction on that statement but I don’t. Politics today is increaslingly sleight of hand and you need to take the time which many people in their busy lives do not have to dig a little into the facts. Cruz in his national elected Senate role has largely been a conservative proselytizer with little to no legislative track record to point to although his long term support of the expansion of lower-wage H-1B guest-workers by universities and their partners, including many companies is disturbing, as these companies’ demand for foreign white-collar guest workers is so high that they have reached the 85,000 annual quota just two weeks after the yearly process began April 1 of this year.

This is a direct cost management tool misused by many high tech firms in particular to close out job opportunities for America’s college graduates. He can dance around this as he has done during his campaign but the issue of his support has a long audit trail. But let’s just put that aside as an area of disagreement in a field of many other policies that to date remember he has only talked about and not produced any tangible actions regarding.

Let’s look at something more grounded, as in who as the conservative candidate, he has surrounded himself with as part of his campaign team. I’ll give you three examples but there are others.

Let’s start with Cruz’s financial adviser Neil Bush who was in the thick of the 1980s saving and loan debacle with the Denver based Silverado Savings and Loan collapse that cost taxpayers $1.3 billion in “bailout payments” and allowed Neil to walk away from criminal charges with a Brush crony provided out of court settlement against him and fellow Silverado directors. In 1999 Neil co-founded Ignite! Learning, an educational software corporation that has enriched itself and him off of brother Jeb’s endless push of Common Core along with his buddy oligarch Boris Berezovsky, a political enemy of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who at the time of his death had been under indictment for fraud in Russia and was an investor in Bush’s Ignite! program since at least 2003.

Then there was the 1999 transaction when Neil made over $798,000 on three stock trades in a single day on a company where he had been employed as a consultant. The company, Kopin Corporation of Taunton, Massachusetts, announced on the very day of the trades the “good news” about a new Asian client that sent its stock value soaring. Neil stated that it was all just a coincidence and as part of the Bush clan the SEC just let him walk away with the cash. Plain and simple insider trading that you or I would have seen jail time over.

OR
Lets look at Cruz economic policy adviser Phil Gramm, former chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. During his tenure he spearheaded efforts to pass banking deregulation legislation, including the landmark Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, which removed laws separating banking, insurance and brokerage activities and “directly” led to the 2007-2009 housing market collapse in the United States and the ultimate largest financial services taxpayer based “bailout” in US history and an economic, employment and deficit catastrophe we still suffer under today.

OR;
As a change of pace lets look at one of his most visible front men in the ongoing US cultural wars, Cruz spokesman Glen Beck, a proven and consistent conspiracy theorist with a troubled past of substance abuse and lying. Beck has taken on the socio-cultural religious role of determining exactly who is and who is not a Christian (evangelical or otherwise for the Cruz campaign) based on support of or lack of support for Cruz’s presidential candidacy.

The fact that Beck is a Mormon passing these religious judgments on theological grounds for the Cruz team seems to just fly over the heads of Cruz’s Pentecostalist supporters. Frankly given Beck’s very public and well documented (all the way back to the endless shifting tales he tells regarding his mother’s death) behaviors he needs a mental health intervention not a spokesman’s role for a presidential candidate running for the Republican nomination.

Granted I have limited experience in this area but someone whose team I did have the opportunity to work with in Iowa and someone I consider a true conservative based on an established legislative record wasn’t consulting and bring on board his policy and advisory team these type of individuals.

This group (excepting Beck and his idiosyncratic lunacies) would fit right into a Jeb Bush campaign team without a hiccup. Conservatism today is increasingly about self acclamation and convenience which is why so many are turning their backs on the philosophy – all talk no delivery. For me if Ted Cruz were a used car on the lot I think I would pass but each has to look at the facts and make their own choice.

You mean I have to shallow Ted Cruz and his inconsistencies or I’m lumped a “Trumpee”. Not much of a horizon in that style of conservative thinking mind set is there? Sounds a lot more like how the Progressives operate. Your either with us or your one of the “bad” guys. The simple and plain fact is I don’t buy into Ted Cruz’s bona fides and while I may be in a small minority I’m not alone among several long time conservatives I keep in contact with across the country that finds something off about him and his style.