Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Cruz dismisses legitimate constitutional concerns which a voter might have as a laughing matter, all without merit. This would be one thing for a constitutional liberal. But the Official 2016 Republican Constitutional Conservative?

JAN

Written by: Diana West 
Sunday, January 24, 2016 10:53 AM  
Part 1 is here. 
A word cloud envelops the Ted Cruz campaign for president. "Consistent." "Conservative." "Reliable." "Consistent conservative," "reliable conservative." "Trusted." Or, as the tagline goes, "TrusTed."This branding does not serve Ted Cruz well. After all, he is a politician. In his short career as a senator and presidential candidate, Cruz has already flip-flopped on vital immigration and trade issues. There is a pattern to his political "evolution." 
As a measure of the Trump effect, Cruz has moved from the globalist position to the nationalist position on Syrian refugess (for to against), Obamatrade (for to against), H1B visas (from calling for expansion to calling for a moratorium), birthright citizenship (from waste of conservative time to must end it). Now he even calls for a "wall that works." In this way, Cruz has moved to occupy brand new political terrain that Donald Trump by himself opened up (which is why Trump has my vote). 
Fine. Americans frequently forgive and forget flip flops. But dub Candidate A the Shining Knight of Consistency and don't be suprised when A's inconsistencies take centerstage, especially when Candidate A is all about branding Candidate B as ... inconsistent. 

Ted Cruz is also known to us as the "constitutional conservative," a moniker I never thought to question until I watched Canada-born Cruz dismiss and, then, on national television, distort and mock what is widely perceived to be the constitutionally conservative, or "originalist" understanding of the Constitution's "natural born" clause. (For the record, I commented on Cruz's ineligibility on such grounds in a syndicated column in 2013.) Thus, Cruz dismisses legitimate constitutional concerns which a voter might have as a laughing matter, all without merit. This would be one thing for a constitutional liberal. But the Official 2016 Republican Constitutional Conservative? Again, the branding becomes a liability, if not also an irritant.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.