{"id":4063,"date":"2016-02-29T19:42:29","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T19:42:29","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2016-02-29T19:42:29","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T19:42:29","slug":"ted_cruz_the_only_candidate_who_s_demonstrated_opposition_to_the_establishment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2016\/02\/29\/ted_cruz_the_only_candidate_who_s_demonstrated_opposition_to_the_establishment\/","title":{"rendered":"Ted Cruz: The Only Candidate Who\u2019s Demonstrated Opposition to the Establishment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

RUSH: Let\u2019s just get back to the audio sound bites. Sunday morning on Meet the Press F. Chuck Todd had Ted Cruz on, and, among other things, said this.<\/p>\n

TODD: Let me ask you something Rush Limbaugh said earlier this week about your candidacy. He said: “Ted Cruz has fought these guys every day that he\u2019s been in Washington, and for a lot of reasons that doesn\u2019t register.” Basically he\u2019s — it sounds like he was almost lamenting it, but the fact is, Donald Trump stole your outsider brand. Super Tuesday was supposed to be the day you were going to be solidifying your status as the front-runner and it\u2019s not turning out that way. How did Trump steal your outsider brand?<\/p>\n

RUSH: And this is what Ted Cruz responded.<\/p>\n

CRUZ: We really saw this in the debate last week. We saw a contrast between Washington deal makers, and this is how we\u2019ve gotten in the mess we\u2019re in now, is Republicans who cut deals with Democrats, grow the debt, grow government and give away our constitutional rights. A contrast between deal makers and a principled constitutional conservative. It was striking. When Donald Trump said, “Ted, you gotta be willing to compromise on the Supreme Court. You gotta be willing to compromise on religious liberty,” let me tell you, I will not compromise away your religious liberty rights. I will not compromise away your Second Amendment. And Donald Trump is telling us, if he\u2019s president, he\u2019ll cut a deal with Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer and give away your constitutional rights.<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: All right. Let\u2019s go back to the question here from F. Chuck Todd. He said, “It sounds like Donald Trump stole your outsider brand. Super Tuesday was supposed to be the day you were going to be solidifying your status as the front-runner. It\u2019s not turning out that way.” Well, Donald Trump has stolen everybody\u2019s brand. You know, this race was shaping up — before Trump gets in, even after Trump gets in, because nobody thinks Trump is gonna go anywhere. He gets in June 16th. <\/p>\n

Prior to that it\u2019s just rumored he\u2019s gonna run, but the rumors are being greeted with, “No way. He\u2019s just negotiating for a new deal on The Apprentice.” That was what everybody was saying last summer. And then he did get in and had that speech announcing his candidacy. I had CNN on while Trump was doing that and I stayed with CNN, and every commentator they had said this is the most ridiculous thing. This is the funniest, this is a laugh riot, this is gonna go nowhere, this guy\u2019s not serious. And then the first poll came in and the political world was shocked. <\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m sure Cruz had a plan. I know what Cruz\u2019s plan was. Cruz believes, or believed — I\u2019m sure he still does — the 2012 returns, four to five million Republican, conservative voters didn\u2019t show up. It has been theorized that many of those are evangelicals that opposed Romney for a host of reasons. On religious regions and the fact that Romney was a faux conservative, wasn\u2019t a real guy, but just fed up with the Republican Party, didn\u2019t vote. And it was thought that that was the margin of victory, had those four million people shown up, that Romney would have won. <\/p>\n

So Cruz immediately I believe strategized how to get those four or five million back to the polls. Well, then the field fills up and Rubio decides to go, and Jeb is in there, and early on, before Trump gets in, don\u2019t forget, everybody thinks Jeb is gonna be the guy, and Jeb\u2019s money is gonna be the obstacle, and so everybody\u2019s focused on how to get around Jeb while Jeb is figuring out how to win without exciting the base. I mean, it was a really convoluted situation. But the Cruz strategy was always to be who he is, the unquestioned, unquestionable, rock solid, anti-Washington establishment conservative. On whatever issue you\u2019re talking you can never doubt, you can have no doubt that Ted Cruz is your guy. <\/line><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s candidacy starts blowing all that up because it took the ideology out of everything. You know, F. Chuck Todd is right in one sense here. Ted Cruz is only guy that was taking on the Republican establishment of all the Republicans in the race. Now, you might want to throw Ben Carson in there, but he was not an elected official, so he had automatic outsider status, and he had come to national awareness by virtue of his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast on Obamacare. But everybody else that was in the race, they were either governors or senators or something, and they were all establishment in one way or the other. <\/p>\n

Ted Cruz was it. And he was the only guy who had been fighting the establishment and he had done it to their face. He goes to the floor of the Senate, he calls Mitch McConnell a liar on any number of issues, from the budget to amnesty, to Senate rules, and Cruz had made it plain he was the guy that was gonna take it to the establishment. He was such an outsider that even as a member of the Senate he was hated, despised, and that was always gonna be a resume enhancement point. Well, Trump coming in with the force of his personality upset all kinds of apple carts, including Ted Cruz\u2019s. <\/p>\n

But through it all, everybody else in the race and Trump, there still is only one guy who has actively demonstrated opposition to the establishment, and that\u2019s Cruz. But like I mentioned in that comment that F. Chuck Todd quoted to Cruz in his question and that is, it hasn\u2019t registered that that\u2019s who Cruz is. And his question was a legitimate one. How is it that your outsider brand — I don\u2019t think it was stolen by Trump, it was just superseded or overpowered. I don\u2019t know what the word would be. <\/line><\/p>\n

Cruz has an excellent point here. And Trump has done this two or three times. In a way of disqualifying Cruz, Trump has said that he\u2019s hated in the Senate, can\u2019t get along with anybody there and therefore can\u2019t make any deals there. I have to tell you, the people that support Ted Cruz don\u2019t want him making deals with McConnell. They don\u2019t want him making deals with any of those people. They want him going in there and blowing the place up, and by contrast it\u2019s Trump talking about the ability to get along with these people, which is a huge contrast. It\u2019s in diametric opposition to what people think of Trump. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s Trump that\u2019s out there talking about how he likes Pelosi and Reid, he could do deals with them if he had to. Now, his caveat is, I will win those deals for the Republicans as opposed to losing those deals like every other Republican has been doing. But Cruz has an excellent point here to keep making if he wants to, if he wants to try to regain the idea, the notion that he is the singular fighting opponent to the establishment, and he is, he\u2019s the guy, he could point out that Trump\u2019s the guy talking about working with them and making deals with \u2019em. <\/p>\n