“Part Of A Deliberate Strategy”: The Religious Right Finds Its Man
The pattern started in earnest in 1996. Social conservative leaders weren’t sold on Bob Dole as the Republicans’ presidential nominee, but the religious right movement struggled to rally behind a credible alternative.
As we discussed in March, in nearly every election cycle that followed, a similar dynamic unfolded. In 2000, the religious right wanted John Ashcroft, who didn’t run. In 2008, the religious right hated John McCain, but it couldn’t settle on a rival. In 2012, social conservatives were skeptical about Mitt Romney, but again, it failed to coalesce behind someone else.
The movement and its leaders were absolutely determined not to repeat their mistakes. This would finally be the cycle, the religious right’s heavyweights insisted, in which social conservatives en masse made an early decision, chose a competitive GOP candidate, and helped propel him or her towards the convention.
And though I was skeptical of their organizational skills, social conservative leaders, for the first time in a generation, are doing exactly what they set out to do. National Review reported late yesterday:
James Dobson, founder of the Christian group Focus on the Family and one of the nation’s most influential evangelicals, will endorse Ted Cruz for president today, according to sources briefed on the announcement. […]
Dobson, sources say, has long been an outspoken voice on Cruz’s behalf, arguing in previous private gatherings that Marco Rubio was not sufficiently conservative to earn the group’s support.
The endorsement from Dobson, a powerhouse in religious right circles, comes on the heels of similar support from the Family Leader’s Bob Vander Plaats, the National Organization for Marriage, and GOP activist/direct-mail pioneer Richard Viguerie.
This isn’t a situation in which prominent social conservatives suddenly saw the merits of the Texas Republican’s candidacy. On the contrary, it’s part of a deliberate strategy.
National Review reported earlier this week on the religious right’s initiative to formally choose the movement’s presidential hopeful.
The initiative, spearheaded by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, had originally brought together a loose coalition of some 50 like-minded conservative leaders from around the country. Together, beginning in early 2014, the group – referred to internally simply as “The GROUP” – met every few months to discuss the state of the race, to pray for guidance, and to conduct a straw poll to see which candidates enjoyed the most support at each stage of the campaign.
It had all built to this day and to this meeting, where members would vote until they reached a verdict. Once finalized, their decision would represent the culmination of an oft-dismissed undertaking that began several years earlier and aimed at one thing: coalescing the conservative movement’s leaders behind a single presidential candidate in a show of strength and solidarity that would position them to defeat the establishment-backed candidate in the head-to-head stage of the 2016 Republican primary.
And two weeks ago, in a hotel boardroom in Northern Virginia, Ted Cruz cleared the 75% supermajority threshold “required to bind the group’s membership to support him.”
Dobson’s endorsement is part of the initiative’s rollout, and his Cruz endorsement will reportedly soon be followed by the Senate Conservatives Fund Ken Cuccinelli and the FRC’s Tony Perkins.
Will this translate into success for the far-right senator? It’s true that social conservatives’ influence over the direction of the Republican Party isn’t as strong as it once was, but this constituency still represents a significant chunk of the GOP base, especially in states like Iowa.
In a competitive nominating fight, which will likely come down to three or four people, Cruz’s formal alliance with the religious right may very well make an enormous difference.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, December 18, 2015
“Now Isn’t That Special!”: Russia’s Putin Offers Unexpected Praise For Trump
Some American leaders find it easier than others to get along with Russian President Vladimir Putin. George W. Bush, for example, once told the world that he’d looked into Putin’s eyes and “was able to get a sense of his soul.” The Republican not only vouched for the former KGB official’s character, he also bragged about calling him “Vladimir” because the two were so close.
It’s safe to say the relationship between Putin and President Obama is quite a bit cooler.
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, meanwhile, believes he can restore a sense of chumminess with the Russian autocrat. “I believe we will have a very good relationship with Russia,” Trump told CBS in September. “I believe that I will have a very good relationship with Putin.”
Evidently, the feelings are mutual.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has given a glowing review of one of the most controversial candidates for the U.S. presidency, telling Russian media that Donald Trump was an absolute leader in the race.
Putin made the comments Thursday to Russian news agency Interfax after taking reporter questions for three hours as part of his annual press conference in Moscow.
I should note that some of the translations vary a bit. BuzzFeed, for example, citing the Interfax news wire, quoted Putin as saying about Trump, “He’s a really brilliant and talented person, without any doubt. It’s not our job to judge his qualities, that’s a job for American voters, but he’s the absolute leader in the presidential race.” I’ve seen other reports with slightly different phrasing.
Putin reportedly added, “He says he wants to move on to a new, more substantial relationship, a deeper relationship with Russia; how can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome that.”
It might be tempting to think this would be an unwelcome development for Trump’s GOP campaign. After all, Putin isn’t especially popular with the American mainstream, so who would want to be the Russian autocrat’s favorite U.S. presidential candidate?
But the politics are a bit more complicated than that, in large part because American Republicans have repeatedly praised Putin in recent years, singling him out as the kind of world leader they respect and admire. It’s created an odd form of partisan cognitive dissonance: Republicans often seem impressed by those who vow to stand up to Putin, even while pointing to the Russian president as a model of strength.
As for the Putin-Trump parallels, is anyone really surprised that the two would admire each other from afar? Consider the similarities: Self-aggrandizing boasts? Check. Delusions of grandeur? Checkity check. An over-reliance on authoritarian tendencies? Big ol’ check.
Put it this way: of all the 2016 presidential candidates, who seems the most likely to eagerly wrestle a bear for the cameras?
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, December 17, 2015
“No Middle Ground”: It’s Not Just Donald Trump’s Popularity, But Cruz’s And Carson’s Too That Endanger The GOP
The Republican Party has a problem. And it’s not just about Donald Trump.
But first, let’s talk about Trump. The billionaire candidate is certainly a thorn in the side of the GOP. He’s sucked all the oxygen out of the room in the presidential primaries, and his inflammatory statements are increasingly giving his party a bad reputation. Although prominent Republicans have taken steps to distance themselves from Trump, the party faces increasing criticism for his antics.
But Republicans can’t just shut him out of the race because of the threat of a third-party Trump candidacy. If Trump feels mistreated by the party and ends up running as an independent, the votes he could siphon off from the Republican nominee might lead to a Democratic victory. It’s a conundrum.
There is, though, a bigger problem. According to recent polling, nationwide, Trump’s lead among Republican presidential candidates is 35 percent. His next closest competitor is Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, whose support stands at 16 percent. Third in line is Ben Carson, polling at 13 percent. None of those individuals is generally considered a feasible candidate for a general election. Their positions are so far to the right that if they were to become the Republican nominee, the party would risk alienating the moderate voters needed to win. Unfortunately for the party, their best general election candidates are polling toward the bottom of the pack. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is performing the best at 9 percent, but all the other candidates are at or below 4 percent.
There are some who feel that Trump’s poll numbers don’t tell the whole story and that his lead may be falsely inflated. If that’s true, does that theory also help explain the popularity of the other far right candidates at the top of the polls? Or has the party as a whole moved to the right? If you add up the support for Trump, Cruz and Carson, the numbers seem to indicate that 64 percent of Republicans polled are supporting the most extreme candidates. Even if the rest of the field consolidated, would any of the other candidates be able to garner enough support for the Republican Party to put its most viable candidate forward for the general election?
Whether Trump is the cause or a symptom of the challenges facing the Republican Party is a matter for another day. However, if current poll numbers are to be believed, there doesn’t seem to be much appetite among the party’s base for selecting a nominee that could capture the moderate middle necessary to win an election. That is a bigger problem for the party than Trump could ever be.
By: Cary Gibson, Thomas Jefferson Street Blog, U. S. News and World Report, December 11, 2015
“America Needs To Get A Grip”: Want Less Terrorism? Start By Rejecting Trump’s Crusade
America needs to get a grip.
Since the slaughter of 14 innocents by two radicalized Muslim terrorists in San Bernardino, California, common sense has been a collateral casualty. Leading a wave of hysteria has been Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, with his harebrained ideas for denying various civil liberties to Muslims.
None of them would pass constitutional muster, thank goodness, and while his diatribes have found fertile ground among his party’s base, the Republican establishment has begun to push back against Trump.
That’s good sign, because we do have a terrorism problem that requires clear thinking and sober judgment. Our actions and policies must be grounded in accurate and detailed information. A report that received relatively little press at the time of its release in early December deserves a spotlight.
It’s far from comforting. The main message is that there is no snapshot profile to identify the jihadist on the block. That fact alone renders much of the blather we’re hearing about restrictions on this group or that beside the point.
“ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa” is the result of a six-month study by the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. It studied online chatter, arrest data and other information in the cases of the 71 people arrested since March 2014 for crimes related to support of the Islamic State, along with counter-terrorism research. Fifty-six were arrested in 2015, a record number in a single year since the 9/11 attacks.
The report asks a crucial question, in the context of students and others caught heading to Syria, intending to join the Islamic State: “How could these seemingly ordinary young American men and, in growing numbers, women, be attracted to the world’s most infamous terrorist organization?” The answer is that we don’t know, “as each individual’s radicalization has its own unique dynamics.”
Average age of those studied was 26, but they ranged in age from 15 to 47; 86 percent were male, and most were U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
Another point that might surprise those who obsessed with Islamic immigrants: Converts to the faith were 40 percent of the people arrested.
In some ways, the study proved to be a bit prophetic about San Bernardino. It noted a decrease in the numbers traveling to join the Islamic State overseas, which raises the possibility that homegrown terrorists will increasingly focus on U.S. targets.
At less than 1 percent of the total adult population, Muslims in America are at a disadvantage with respect to public perception. Many Americans literally don’t know a single one of the estimated 1.8 million adults in the U.S. who are Muslim.
Assimilation and acceptance, as opposed to isolation, the report notes, are key to blocking radicalization. That’s actually a hopeful point we can look to. Despite the caustic debates about Islam playing out in our media of late, America’s Muslims are far more integrated than their coreligionists in many European countries. That’s a huge strength — and one that should not be undermined.
About 63 percent of Muslims in the U.S. are immigrants. They are also more likely to hold a college degree than native-born citizens, and Muslim women stand out for educational attainment. They’re an asset to our nation, and it’s in everybody’s interest, in the measures we take to protect ourselves from terrorism, not to alienate them.
If American citizens are truly to follow the “if you see something, say something” mode of alertness, we need to be knowledgeable. A mentality of Muslim-equals-terrorist will not help keep us safe.
Here’s a more helpful attitude. How about taking up some of the burden? Read up on the politics and history of the regions and countries where Muslim immigrants and refugees come from, on the conflict now ravaging Syria and Iraq, on the Islamic State and how it is recruiting and how its tactics morph. And get to know more Muslims.
This is an awkward time in our history when Muslim Americans are being expected to speak out after each radical attack, to defend their faith, to denounce bloodshed.
The presumption is offensive.
God forbid if I had to answer for every horrific deed committed by any Latino, or any woman, or any Catholic, or any journalist, or any other member of a group with which I could identify.
That’s a burden that can be lifted from Muslims in America only when the rest of us gain more insight into the faith, its members and the horrific ways that the Islamic State seeks to radicalize.
By: Mary Sanchez, Opinion-Page Columnist for The Kansas City Star; The National Memo, December 12, 2015
“A Walking, Talking Outrage”: Why Even People Who Agree With Him Hate Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz is now ahead of Donald Trump in a GOP presidential poll of Iowa, where the Texas senator is campaigning hard. That leap-frogging is the likely reason that Trump insanely, desperately, and dangerously called Monday for a “complete shutdown” on Muslims entering the U.S.
But let’s move beyond the proto-fascist in the GOP ranks and talk about Ted Cruz. Like Mike Huckabee before him, Cruz has a political style that resonates with Iowa’s conservatives: emotional, low-church, slightly rebellious. Still, it is hard to predict Cruz’s path forward, because it is difficult to think of a major party candidate more hated by his own party, Donald Trump notwithstanding.
Past enfant terrible candidates are rarely hated in this way. Ron Paul was treated as a funny curio. Pat Buchanan’s revolt was partly mourned, as if he couldn’t help it. Trump’s has been greeted with consternation and some fear. But Cruz is greeted as a walking, talking outrage. He’s treated as an offense in himself. And, it should be said, he seems to relish it. “I welcome their hatred,” Franklin Roosevelt once said after being labeled a class traitor. It’s easy to imagine Cruz feeling the same way about his political enemies.
Cruz has chutzpah. At a recent Republican debate, he got applause for castigating the debate moderators for trying to divide Republicans. Republican senators on that stage must have gagged; Cruz’s whole career has been about dividing Republicans. He has spent the last several years trying to create a caucus in the House that is loyal to his school of high-risk, no-reward brinksmanship. He promises to defund ObamaCare when the Senate can do no such thing. Or argues that the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide did not really apply to the whole nation. This strategy burnishes Cruz’s reputation among the Republican base, but it creates headaches for senators and for the Republican House leadership.
The distaste for Cruz goes far beyond just his divisive political strategy, or the perception that he says nothing, true or untrue, unless it is maximally self-serving. It goes to his oleaginous, hyper-moralizing personality, even the repulsively sentimentalized way he talks about the “Children of Reagan” who are taking over the Republican Party. Frank Bruni related in a column that veterans of the 2000 George W. Bush campaign learned to loathe Cruz, and that many of them would, under truth serum, admit to preferring Trump to him. Cruz’s college roommate Craig Mazin is dragged before media to give amusingly nasty assessments of Cruz’s character. “I did not like him at all in college,” Mazin said, “…And, you know, I want to be clear, because Ted Cruz is a nightmare of a human being. I have plenty of problems with his politics, but truthfully his personality is so awful that 99 percent of why I hate him is just his personality.”
Giving GOP leadership trouble normally doesn’t trouble me. And I’m tempted to agree with Cruz on some things, like the perfidy of the Republican donor class. But last fall, Cruz was invited to speak at an ecumenical gathering of Middle Eastern Christians who were lobbying for support from Washington to help their embattled flocks (some of which face genocidal violence.) For reasons I still can’t comprehend, Cruz decided to offer this tiny effort a political decapitation. He goaded the audience about its lack of support for the state of Israel and then accused them of being anti-Semites. And it is only more galling in that Ted Cruz knows the relevant history. And he knows that his evangelical audience in America is mostly ignorant of it. He knew how to get a rise out of both audiences, and raised his own profile doing it.
It was a moment so cynical and underhanded, I joined the unofficial anyone-but-Cruz caucus.
Still, as a pundit, I have to admit I’m intrigued by the premise of Ted Cruz. He is the embodiment of the GOP’s on-again, off-again populist rhetoric. He seems to be running his campaign on the false wisdom about 2012, that there were millions of voters who stayed home because Mitt Romney wasn’t conservative enough for them. This is a campaign that is aiming for glory or ignominy and won’t settle for anything in between.
For any conservative who has wanted to see the leadership of the Republican Party horse-whipped, Ted Cruz looks like a gnarly weapon at hand. He is the revenge they deserve.
By: Michael Brendan Dougherty, The Week, December 8, 2015
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