First official Republican hat in the ring?

[justalurkr]

Deeply embarrassed that this will be the first presidential candidate Gen X throws up, emphasis on "throws up": http://t.co/3GMncI5yuC

— John Scalzi (@scalzi) March 22, 2015

In case you're not a subscriber of the NY Times and are near or out of your free articles for the month, the link leads to the news that Ted Cruz is going to annouce his candidacy tomorrow (Monday, 3/23) and seeks to raise forty or fifty million bucks for the effort.  He's doing it without the usual 'exploratory committee' rigmarole, for whatever that's worth.

I'm considering options for what to do if a Tea Party darling like Cruz makes real headway. Is this the country I want to live in?

Comments

[amycooper.livejournal.com]

I think the Republican party has a real serious threat of going so far right during the primaries that their candidates will be unelectable during the general elections.

[justalurkr.livejournal.com]

And they don't seem to care. Or maybe they don't grasp the reality that there are tons of nonaligned but sane voters? I haven't had a clue what's going on with that party since Nixon resigned, and I was pretty much too young to understand then.

[amycooper.livejournal.com]

I think part of it is that districts are drawn by those in power. That means for republicans, you have these insanely shaped districts of mostly conservatives so their candidates are only hearing and responding to the far right when at the local level and have no clue what life is like at a more national level. Then when they run for national office, they are so shaped by the far right (and have such a documented history of support for the far right) that they have no hope of carrying California, the northeast or other liberal or even moderate states.

On top of that, we currently live in a society where it is very easy to avoid opinions you don't agree with and only hear those that agree with you, meaning your ideas are never challenged and you get this false perception that more people agree with you than is reality.

[justalurkr.livejournal.com]

That is all very well put and clarifying! I hadn't thought of the gerrymandering that's been going on for so long.

[superbadgirl]

Ugh, he's such a wad of used gum on the bottom of your shoe you just can't scrape off no matter how hard you try.

[justalurkr.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be fairly distressed if he gets as far as the nomination. Whatever it is that makes him a darling of the right? I just don't see.