{"id":214505,"date":"2016-09-26T18:56:27","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T22:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/172.24.32.11\/daily\/2016\/09\/26\/cruz_miscalculated_at_the_convention\/"},"modified":"2016-09-26T18:56:27","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T22:56:27","slug":"cruz_miscalculated_at_the_convention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2016\/09\/26\/cruz_miscalculated_at_the_convention\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruz Miscalculated at the Convention"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a> <\/p>\n

\n

RUSH: We go to Elkton, Virginia.  This is Darrell.  Great to have you with us, sir.  Hello.<\/p>\n

CALLER:  Hi, Rush, thanks for taking my call.  I wanted to get your take on Ted Cruz\u2019s coming out supporting the Republican nominee and said he would vote for Donald Trump.  I heard him on Beck this morning and it got pretty contentious with Beck and Beck pretty much said that it was a calculated decision.  What\u2019s your take on it.<\/p>\n

RUSH:  Well, of course it was calculated.  Does it bother you that it was calculated?<\/p>\n

CALLER:  No, not at all.<\/p>\n

RUSH:  So you don\u2019t have a problem with him endorsing Trump?<\/line><\/p>\n

CALLER:  Absolutely not.<\/p>\n

RUSH:  Okay.  I think Ted Cruz is a great conservative, and I always have.  And I think he\u2019s trustworthy with conservatism.  This was not handled well.  My take on this, I couldn\u2019t believe that he didn\u2019t understand — I\u2019m not comfortable putting it that way, \u2019cause I don\u2019t think he\u2019s dumb.  Okay, Trump offers you a prime time slot at the convention.  You have to figure, if you\u2019re Ted Cruz, that that offer means that there is an expectation that you\u2019re gonna join the party, that you\u2019re gonna endorse, and if you don\u2019t endorse, you\u2019re at least going to say you support, that you are gonna vote for the nominee. <\/p>\n

I think it was a miscalculation to think that he could go to the convention and stand on principle as he was trying to do and not endorse. Because you talk about the calculation, the calculation that he was making was to stay true and loyal to the conservative base for his future.  And there\u2019s nothing wrong with that.  I mean, that\u2019s what politics is.  He wants to run again.  He\u2019s Mr. Conservative, and he wants to maintain his credibility, and he decided that endorsing Trump at Trump\u2019s convention would not be appreciated by the conservative base. <\/p>\n

I think he thought he would have many more accolades doing what he did than what he ended up getting.  I think he got the exact opposite of what he was expecting to get.  So I think that was a miscalculation, because he ended up — I mean, after all, this is about winning the White House now, not in 2020, winning it now, it, for a host of reasons, chief among them is keeping Hillary out of it.  And doing it the way Ted did, he managed to upset some clearly conservative donors, and he got a lot of Trump people mad at him.  And if he was going to endorse Trump anyway, as he did, then what he did at the convention wasn\u2019t necessary.  He could have avoided all of that. <\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s easy to look back in hindsight and be critical, but he could have.  If he was gonna endorse anyway, if he knew he was gonna endorse anyway, and at some point he\u2019s still a Republican, whether he\u2019s estranged from the Republican leadership or thinking conservatism is a branch of the party, still at election time, you come together.  But this has a lot of moving parts.  <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

One thing on the Ted Cruz situation.  The way things turned out, Ted Cruz ended up being for some, I don\u2019t know how many, but for some the last great hope of conservatism.  There are many out there who believe that other conservatives watered themselves down, diluted their effectiveness by supporting Trump or by not opposing Trump. <\/p>\n

And in the process I think Ted Cruz believed and considered, maybe calculated, that he was indeed the last viable remaining conservative in the elected political realm.  And because of that, thought that if he maintained his principles and steadfastly refused to support Trump, for principled reasons, plus the continuing honoring of his father and others, his wife, who\u2019d come under criticism or defamation, as Cruz saw it, that this would redound to his benefit, to the rock solid conservative movement in the country. <\/p>\n

But if he knew all along that he was going to endorse Trump, then the play he made at the convention by saying vote your conscience and having that interpreted as vote against Trump or don\u2019t vote Trump, however it was interpreted, he went through a bunch of things that turned out to be not necessary to go through. If you\u2019re not gonna endorse at the convention, don\u2019t go.  That was not the place to make a principled stand.  Not the Republican convention, when at that point in time the enemy is Hillary Clinton.  Donald Trump has ceased being the enemy at that point, except to — well, you know, some conservative organizations and so forth.  But in terms of, the vast majority of the American people are not in the conservative movement.  Wish it were otherwise.  There are a lot of conservatives, don\u2019t misunderstand, but the conservative movement and the people who think they define what that is, it\u2019s not a majority club.  Wish that it was, but it isn\u2019t. <\/line><\/p>\n

And at the convention, the focus obviously had become on beating Hillary Clinton and Trump was the vessel for that, and a lot of people were unhappy with it, obviously so, that Ted tried to establish his principle bona fides there.  And now he\u2019s got people questioning whether he is principled.  And I think it\u2019s unfortunate.  Some of the reaction that he\u2019s gotten is, “Oh, my God, we don\u2019t have anybody now. Oh, my God, we\u2019ve lost Ted.”  And it\u2019s not that dire.  It isn\u2019t that dire at all.  Except to some it is.  But I don\u2019t believe that it is. <\/p>\n

Anyway, I don\u2019t want to get too far in the weeds on that, that\u2019s another subject.  As far as Ted Cruz is concerned, I have no question about his conservative credentials, bona fides, commitment, principles, any of that.  I just think he made an error in his political calculation over how to deal with things at that convention.  If he wasn\u2019t going to endorse I think it would have been better not to go, pure and simple. I don\u2019t know what he knew then.  I don\u2019t know if that night that he spoke, if he knew that he eventually was gonna endorse Trump or not.  But if he did, if he knew that eventually he was gonna have to — and look, he\u2019s still a Republican.  There\u2019s still demands on Republicans. <\/p>\n

Let me tell you why — let me find something here.  I\u2019m gonna have to find this after the break because we\u2019ve got things out of order here, but I\u2019ve got a great example in front of me.  Here it is.  This is why there\u2019s still a future for Cruz and any number of conservatives.  This little blurb, it\u2019s a tiny little story here, it\u2019s from the Washington Examiner, and the headline of this piece:  “Wolves in Sheep\u2019s Clothing.”  And I\u2019m just gonna read a couple of excerpts from it to really get to the point of this.<\/a> <\/p>\n

“The summit, backed by groups representing young conservative and Christian voters, will hear from a number of Republican lawmakers who support renewable energy and want conservatives to take back leadership from the left on the subject, and to some degree climate change.<\/p>\n

“Former presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina tops the list of Republicans addressing the Conservative Clean Energy Summit being held Thursday on Capitol Hill. Graham will be joined by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a key Republican advocate for wind energy subsidies and senior member on the Senate Finance Committee.<\/p>\n

“Michele Combs, founder and chairwoman of Young Conservatives for Energy Reform, said the summit will be mainly focused on educating lawmakers and voters on the issue, and that “it\u2019s OK for a conservative” to support clean energy from wind, solar, hydroelectric, biomass and other resources.”<\/p>\n

<\/a>Now, some people are gonna look at that, and they\u2019re gonna think conservatism is dead.  The conservative movement is dead.  If this is what it\u2019s become, that we have got, on yet another issue, we have got to join the left. We\u2019ve gotta get ourselves involved somehow in the climate change movement by showing that we are for renewables, because we are desperate to get ourselves in the conversation where people understand we are for sustainable. Sustainable, by the way, don\u2019t doubt me, “sustainable” is a keyword in the vocabulary of Millennials<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The way to reach them is through sustainability. It\u2019s the reason they believe in global warming, by the way.  Aside from the fact that they have been inundated with it from the time they\u2019ve been watching Captain Planet cartoons on Saturday morning — thank you, Ted Turner — they have just been deluged with all of this propaganda on climate change.  And a huge number of Millennials, 18-to-34-year-olds, seriously believe that by the time they\u2019re 65 the planet might not be habitable.  It\u2019s absurd. <\/p>\n

I have a story in the Stack today<\/a>.  All of these little islands like Diego Garcia and some others that were thought to be dwarfed by rising sea levels are actually expanding.  The square mileage of some of these islands — remember you\u2019ve seen the pictures and the predictions, in a few short years this little island will be overrun by rising — none of it\u2019s happening!  But they think it is.  And they think their parents are to blame for it by not caring and destroying the environment with driving certain cars and all of the things that they\u2019ve been told their parents have done and their grandparents.<\/p>\n

So sustainability is a keyword to Millennials, or young conservatives.  And if you tell them that something\u2019s not sustainable, then they will not be for it.  So you tell \u2019em fossil fuels are not sustainable, you tell \u2019em modern day capitalism it\u2019s sustainable, they fall for it because they\u2019re afraid that their parents and grandparents have damaged the plantet so bad it may not be able to support life by the time they reach retirement age.  I\u2019m stunned when I found out just how many of them think this. <\/p>\n

So obviously here\u2019s an effort to get in on this, not by informing them of the truth, but by trying to convince them that, yeah, we think what you think, too, even though we really don\u2019t and even though we know they\u2019re wrong, we\u2019re gonna get in on it, we can\u2019t afford not to.  Well, that\u2019s not what conservatism is.  But that\u2019s what it\u2019s become in so many damn ways. It\u2019s become that way on immigration for some leaders, not all.  Take your pick. <\/p>\n

There are any number of issues like this where you combine electability with conservatism and what ends up being compromised is the conservatism.  And this is why there\u2019s still opportunity for principled conservative leaders, but the pressure is on to join the Democrats and the left on all of this wind, solar, renewable stuff.  Not that there\u2019s any wrong with it, folks, but the motivation behind it is all wrong and how far along we are in it is all wrong.  There\u2019s no money to be made. <\/p>\n

Anyway, I\u2019m way long here, and I don\u2019t have much time, and I\u2019m not really gonna be able to say everything I want to say about this so I have to do it another day.  <\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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