As you’ve probably figured out by now I saved my Cruz
critique for last because I have tended to favor him for my GOP nominee for
president in 2016. You have also observed in my previous blogs that Cruz has
consistently been the most conservative candidate of the group. I’m glad that I
put off assessing Cruz because in the last several weeks he has disappointed me
on many occasions but maybe I have set my standards too high in evaluating our
candidates. Each of them has a couple of reasonably good conservative
ideologies but all are lacking, in my humble opinion, in many other social,
economic, foreign-policy, and even what I would consider to be a reasonable
standard for the treatment of fellow candidates. One of the things that I used
in setting my standards was I simply wanted the candidates to at least act “presidential”.
Each and every one of them in turn has failed that primary standard. Each in
turn has lowered himself to a pathetic show of gutter politics. Each in turn
has shown himself to be a candidate of smears, dishonesty, innuendo, self-aggrandizing
grandstanding. This primary season has proven itself to be the nastiest of all the
campaign seasons I have witnessed in nearly 50 years of paying attention to the
political process. In short, as I have said many times in the past, I will vote
for our nominee in November but I will hold my nose when I pull the lever. I can only hope that the GOP nominee will spend at least a fraction of the energy on Hillary's destruction as he has spent destroying his GOP opponents.
I must now finally stop stalling and present my Ted Cruz assessment
of conservatism. In all my previous blogs I have noted that Cruz has
consistently been shown to be the most conservative of all the GOP candidates.
Even though I am not endorsing Ted Cruz, or any other candidate for that
matter, I have tended to favor him throughout this primary process. But in the
last several weeks Cruz has lowered himself into the political gutter of
name-calling, innuendo, and just plain nastiness. Cruz professes to be an
evangelical Christian but some of his actions and utterances have given an
opposing impression. I believe Cruz to be a Christian but he weakened when it
came time to “turn the other cheek”. When Trump would slap Cruz, Cruz would
slap back. Slapping back is the manly thing to do but not necessarily the Christian
thing to do. I hoped Cruz would stay above the fray but he couldn’t pull it
off. I will confess that I would’ve fallen into the gutter alongside Cruz had I
been in his place of having to defend my wife and family. It would take a
stronger will than mine to remain cool under that specific type of personal attack.
Getting back to his conservative ideologies, he is without a doubt the most
conservative of all the candidates. The sad fact is he cannot and will not take
Trump out of the nominee position unless the GOP establishment allows it to
happen. Just keep in mind that even though the GOP establishment and their
primary/caucus nominating system completely negates the will of the people, they
have no control over the voters in the November election with the exception of
having picked our candidate. But regardless of who our candidate will be please
go vote. It is not possible that Trump or Cruz or even Kasich for that matter
will be a worse president than Hillary Clinton. Please do not vote for Hillary or
stay at home because staying at home is equivalent to voting for Hillary.
I understand because of my personal experience how difficult
it is to hear bad things about your favorite candidate. Because I spend so much
time submerged in the “cesspool of politics” I hear and read much more about
the candidates than the average voter. That does not make me smarter than
anyone else just more informed. While most GOP voters are at work and/or
raising children they don’t have time to get as involved as I am. I spend many
days questioning why I follow this political circus like some kind of roadie or
groupie. There are many adjectives describing how I feel while I scuba dive in
the cesspool of national politics. I feel betrayed, overwhelmed, disgusted,
amazed, fearful, but the one thing that I seldom am is surprised. I’ve become
so jaded and cynical of national politics that I honestly have developed my opinion
based on the popular adage: “the easiest way to tell when a politician is lying
is when he/she opens his/her mouth”.
I’m done with the GOP for now but I’ll be back with more in
a later blog. My next blog, unless something shiny is dangled in front of me
and diverts my attention, will be some personal opinions about Hillary Clinton
and Bernie Sanders. The GOP has a wide variety of candidates and ideologies to
sift through to pick a candidate but each and every one of them at least start
with a base ideology of loving America. The liberals two candidates are both dangerous to the American way of life. I find it extremely difficult to
wrap my head around the fact that these two are the best people the liberals
could come up with!
God Bless America!!!
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