By William McRight
This election cycle has presented right leaning voters with a buffet of choices. We have a candidate who has been near the presidency and public service his entire life due to the cosmic roulette wheel of birthright. We have a candidate who has literally held life in his very hands over fifteen thousand times. We have a candidate who spent the large majority of his life as a financier and determined fighter against policies that are the bedrock of conservatism. We have a candidate who despite a strong record of conservative positions, made a terrible, senseless unforced error early in his Senate career by aligning with Democrats and liberal Republicans on an unpopular immigration proposal. It still dogs him to this day. If we are to stop the reckless march of progressivism Senator Ted Cruz is one choice that makes sense. First, let us consider a little history.
Let’s start by setting a baseline. If we are to look at Republican presidents over say the last fifty years, you’d hazard that most Republicans would say that Ronald Reagan was the best true, conservative Republican of the bunch minus the one bad thing: Amnesty. Reagan’s governance was conservative by any measure. It created respect around the world, a booming economy and a populace ready to work and be productive. Since the end of Reagan’s second term, conservatives now find themselves in a big tent with a lot of people who think leadership is “making deals” with people who would like to see our way of thinking go the way of the Whig Party. The challenge with that position is “getting something done” often means giving up beliefs and principles that make us conservatives and abandoning policies that historically have proven successful. As a result, you get Dole, Romney, McCain, et. al. Please note the common thread of all the folks above leave all conservatives with a mouth full of kicked in teeth. We offered up all these tomato cans in an effort to answer the “electability” argument. The only thing it showed is the GOP are experts in “loseability.” We should posit the question, “Hey wouldn’t it be great to have a candidate that was just like Reagan or maybe a little better and didn’t have that one bad thing we didn’t like?”
Senator Ted Cruz is that man.
Our system of government, after decades of the unstoppable Zombie walk of progressivism, now desperately needs a filtration system installed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. That filtration system MUST have the Constitution at the end of the inflow and outflow pipes. Our governance cannot be determined by polls, focus groups and special interests. It must be determined by shrinking the size, reach and scope of an intrusive leviathan of government. It is time for government to get off our backs while doing only what the Constitution charges it to do. It should be noted the preamble states that it is not government’s job to provide general welfare, but to promote it. Government is only charged with providing common defense. Our governance must carry a diving rod to determine what is best for the people, not what is best for government or political parties. Senator Ted Cruz has not only talked about that. He has done it. He has not done it for political points. He has done it to the detriment of his own career and bank of political capital. He has done it because that is what he believes. We do not need more “deals” with an ideology that seeks our extinction.
The trope that is always thrown at Senator Ted Cruz is electability. It is stated that people “don’t like him.” If as a candidate you are in a field of, at one point, 17 candidates and you have more money and contributions than nearly all of them combined, somebody likes you. If you have nearly 900,000 individual contributions averaging $67 dollars, somebody likes you. If you have grassroots volunteer networks in the hundreds of thousands of people, somebody likes you. If in a wide candidate field, you win more votes in an Iowa caucus than any candidate in history, somebody likes you. If in a primary in a deep blue state, you finish third behind the two most liberal Republicans in the field, somebody likes you. In a hypothetical choice between the nationalist, populist, entirely awful “front runner” and Senator Ted Cruz, Cruz wins it by a lot. That too would mean somebody likes you. Let’s dispense with the “electability” garbage. An unelectable candidate would not boast metrics like that.
Most importantly, our next President will pick as many as four Supreme Court Justices. The stunning loss of Antonin Scalia last evening crystallized how important it will be to have a President in place who will select rock ribbed conservatives with a long paper trail of consistent conservatism. Before Ted Cruz was a preeminent politician, he was a jurist of considerable achievement. He graduated Cum Laude from Princeton and Magna Cum Laude from Harvard. A leading Solicitor General for Texas arguing many cases in front of the Supreme Court. His credentials regarding this are crystal clear. We can only trust one of the foremost Constitutional scholars of this generation to make those choices. Senator Cruz has learned about getting burned by a campaign conservative or a jurist with a short paper trail. He will not allow that to happen with these extremely important selections.
Finally, sensible bold policy initiatives underline leadership and a solid desire to move the country in a better direction. Senator Ted Cruz’s Five for Freedom Plan starts with a call to eliminate five bureaucrat heavy needlessly onerous agencies. Again, a conservative who wants to shrink the federal government. It is what a conservative is supposed to do.
Senator Ted Cruz’s Simple Flat Tax Plan calls for a low flat tax and a low business tax to take our money out of the government’s hands and put it back where it belongs. In our hands.
All of Senator Ted Cruz decisions are filtered through the Constitution. Period. That is what we need more than anything. Government relegated to it’s proper role.
To quote Reagan’s famous speech, it is indeed a time for choosing. We must encourage our friends, family, followers and faithful to make a choice based on logic, history, conservatism, performance and actions. We cannot make our choice based on a life long Democrat shouting a few jingoistic bromides about “building a wall.” Senator Ted Cruz has been making that same argument since 2011. He has made it logically, professionally and most importantly, presidentially.
For true conservatives, Senator Ted Cruz is the consistent conservative choice.
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