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Friday, January 22, 2016

How Many Non-Conservatives Would Vote For Cruz?

Unless there would be some sort of major change in the electorate in the near future, which we have no reason to expect, Republicans can't win the White House this year without getting many millions of votes from non-conservatives. And a lot of the ones who are most persuadable are low-information voters, who decide how to vote based on factors as shallow as race, physical appearance, communication skills, whether a candidate came from a wealthy or more modest background, or what news items are most prominent just before the election (e.g., around fifteen percent of voters said that Hurricane Sandy was the biggest factor in determining which presidential candidate they voted for in 2012). Cruz might win over enough of those people. You could see him having some good moments in the debates or some good television ads, for example, that would make him likeable enough to those voters. Or his Democratic opponent could be flawed enough to allow Cruz to win in spite of his weaknesses. But we can't assume, without evidence, that some such scenario will occur. We have to make a judgment about Cruz's ability to win over the non-conservatives he needs based on what seems likely to happen, not just what might happen.

And that's a big problem for Cruz. He has an unusually bad reputation. (That's not just relevant to the presidential campaign, but also to how a Cruz candidacy would affect Congressional races and other campaigns. And it's relevant to how effectively Cruz would be able to govern if elected, for example. His bad reputation can't be explained solely on the basis of his conservatism, since so many other highly conservative members of Congress have a significantly better reputation than Cruz does.) He has a voice and facial expressions that are off-putting to a lot of people. The web and television are filled with shots of Cruz with a scowl or smirk on his face. The media and other opponents have an interest in portraying him that way, and they often do. But it's also a matter of what Cruz looks like and how he expresses himself. He often comes across as overly scripted, sometimes too dramatic or shrill. He's occasionally compared to a televangelist, and there's some merit to the comparison. He has a lot of strengths to counterbalance his weaknesses. He's intelligent, highly knowledgeable of the issues, comes from a modest background, is part of a racial minority, etc. But his weaknesses are substantial enough to make it an uphill battle for him to win over enough non-conservative voters.

And he has a competitor, Marco Rubio, who would be much more likely to get those voters to support him. He has a better reputation, looks and sounds better, and is a better communicator. He comes across as too scripted at times, but not as much as Cruz does. He doesn't motivate his opponents as much as Cruz motivates his. And he would increase the Republicans' chances of winning Florida, which is more important than increasing our chances of winning Texas.

There are a lot of irrational responses to Rubio's advantages, but one of the most popular is to claim that he isn't conservative enough. As I've said before, Rubio's recent ratings with the American Conservative Union and the Heritage Foundation are 98% and 94%, respectively. It's not as though he's a liberal or moderate. There isn't much of a difference between Rubio and Cruz in terms of conservatism. And you can't implement conservatism without first getting elected. Rubio's electability advantage, in an election Republicans need so much to win, is weightier than Cruz's policy advantages.

29 comments:

  1. Spoken like a true RINO.

    What is the point of voting for RINOs like Marco Rubio when they screw over the very voters who vote them in by pushing democratic agendas? e.g. the past two historic national elections.

    Nice try but no cigar. The naïveté is palpable.



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    1. "Spoken like a true RINO. What is the point of voting for RINOs like Marco Rubio when they screw over the very voters who vote them in by pushing democratic agendas? e.g. the past two historic national elections. Nice try but no cigar. The naïveté is palpable."

      1. Hm, what's the argument that Rubio is a RINO? For example, Jason cited Rubio's very high ratings with the American Conservative Union as well as the Heritage Foundation.

      2. If anyone is a RINO, then I'd say it's most likely Trump. He's had a very strong liberal record all the way up, oh, he decided to run for president, which was mere months ago. Even Ted Cruz has suggested Trump could be a Democrat.

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    2. Alan,

      In previous threads you've participated in, I've provided documentation of Rubio's conservatism and some of the good things accomplished by the Republicans in Congress and other Republicans. You keep ignoring that documentation. You also keep ignoring our counterarguments to your claims. What you've given us is the typical short-tempered irrationality of a Trump supporter in the form of drive-by posts that have little substance and a lot of bluster. What you've just posted was already anticipated and answered in my post above and in a thread you participated in last week. In other words, your post had already been refuted by us before you finished writing it.

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    3. i) Actually, the RINOs oppose Rubio and support Trump.

      ii) Suppose for argument's sake that Cruz has more good ideas about what to do as president than Rubio. But if Cruz can't get elected, then his having better ideas is no advantage. If he can't get elected, he can't implement his superior agenda as president.

      Why vote for someone for president because he has better ideas if he can't get elected?

      You could try to challenge the premise (Cruz is less unelectable or much less electable), but unless the premise is mistaken, what's wrong with the conclusion?

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  2. Vote for Rand pAul if you're worried about a RINO. Trump bashes Cruz for not compromising with the Dems....

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  3. "Trump bashes Cruz for not compromising with the Dems...."

    That could be a legitimate concern depending on the circumstances.

    Although to be fair bipartisanship is a two-way street. How willing to negotiate and compromise with Republicans have the Democrats been of late?

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  4. Cruz is so unelectable that he is *ahead* the electable Rubio in Republican primary polls for Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida, and nationally.

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    1. There's no doubt that Rubio needs to prove himself.

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    2. Nick,

      Electability involves more than current primary polls. You also take other polling into account, such as larger trends in the polls and general election match-ups (Rubio vs. Clinton, Cruz vs. Clinton, etc.). My initial post in this thread discusses some of the factors involved, and you're ignoring what I said there. What you're doing is like citing Gingrich's popularity in late 2011 and early 2012 and using it as a justification for concluding that he was more electable than Romney and other candidates. We knew at the time that Gingrich had some significant electability problems, even though there was a period when he was the frontrunner. And Gingrich did eventually fall in the polls. If he had been the nominee, it's highly probable that he would have lost by a bigger margin than Romney did.

      By your reasoning, we should think that Trump has much better electability than Cruz or anybody else. When Carson was ahead for a while last year, we should have concluded that he had the best electability. But if you take other factors into account, like the ones I've mentioned, you can make a better judgment about who's more likely to be more electable in the context of the general election.

      By their nature, low-information voters aren't paying much attention to what's going on at this point. To equate Republican primary voters in January with low-information voters in November would be a mistake. Furthermore, it's not as though we don't know why people have been supporting candidates like Trump, Carson, and Cruz. There's a lot of polling data on the views of those supporters, and we've been able to read a lot of their posts in online forums, for example. The reasoning behind Trump's poll lead and Cruz's current lead over Rubio (he trailed Rubio for most of the campaign), for example, is significantly different than the reasoning people usually provide for voting as they do in a general election. Maybe people's motives for voting will be a lot different this year than in the past. But that's unlikely. Even if Republican primary voters would have different motivations than usual, it wouldn't follow that less politically active Republicans, independents, low-information voters, etc. have undergone similar changes.

      It's extremely unlikely that we've gotten to a point in our society where factors like a candidate's physical appearance, voice, and reputation won't have much of an effect on how many votes he gets. If you think there's some reason to believe that such a change has occurred, you should explain why. If you don't think that kind of change has happened, then you should address what I've said about Cruz above.

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    3. Nick, your comment is confused. Cruz is ahead of Rubio in the Republican primary race. Rubio is ahead of Cruz in the general, for example when we look at the various head-to-head match ups. That's the race that matters.

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    4. Even if we limited our analysis to the primaries, ignoring the general election, we'd have to ask questions like why it took so long for Cruz to pull ahead of Rubio and why he only has a single-digit lead in the Real Clear Politics average after all this time. Cruz got into the campaign earlier. He's had a far higher quantity and quality of coverage on talk radio and many conservative web sites. He's had more money than Rubio. He's had other advantages. Along with some disadvantages. But why would somebody with so many advantages have as little success as Cruz has had? I suspect it's largely been due to factors like the ones I've discussed in this thread. Even Republican primary voters, who are much less critical of Cruz than general election voters would be, aren't yet showing the sort of interest in Cruz you'd expect them to have in light of his advantages mentioned above.

      Let's just single out one example. Cruz has gotten an ocean of support for years from talk radio and conservative web sites. In the midst of all the irrationality and emotionalism we've been getting in recent months from people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity (along with some good things they've done), one thing they've been consistent about is speaking highly of Cruz and doing it often. Rubio has been in the doghouse of talk radio and conservative web sites for years, far out of proportion to what he's done wrong. Meanwhile, Cruz has received positive coverage far out of proportion to what he's deserved. So, in that kind of context, why did Cruz trail Rubio for most of the campaign, and why does he now only have a single-digit lead?

      Cruz has a lot of strengths. Maybe he'll win the primaries. I only give Rubio a small probability of winning. He's made some mistakes. A recent one was setting expectations for his early primary performance too high (coming in third in Iowa, second in New Hampshire, and first in South Carolina). Tim Pawlenty made that sort of mistake in 2011. He set too high a hurdle for himself early on, didn't pass it, and dropped out too early. He would have been a better general election candidate than Romney and should have made more of an effort to stay in and get the nomination. Rubio may be repeating Pawlenty's mistake, though to a lesser degree. There' a good chance that Cruz will beat Rubio, and Cruz even has a reasonable chance of winning the general election. But the evidence as it currently stands seems to be against Cruz's winning the nomination and against his winning the general election.

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  5. Jason,

    You hold no credibility with me: "Trump is a fad, "Trump is not electable," Trump does not appeal to democrats, blacks, and women." All proven wrong. Your RINO lens has led you in delusion and naïveté.

    Learn from history, young skywalker.



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    1. Whether or not Trump is unelectable remains to be seen. He hasn't even won the nomination yet, much less the general election. So, no, that hasn't been proven wrong. Same thing with is appeal to blacks.

      And in fairness to Jason, Trump has remained more popular than experts like Nate Silver predicted. They do that for a living.

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    2. "Trump does not appeal to democrats, blacks, and women." All proven wrong. Your RINO lens has led you in delusion and naïveté."

      Alan, I don't know what you base that on. According to Nate Silver:

      "Contra Rupert Murdoch’s assertion about Trump having crossover appeal, Trump is extraordinarily unpopular with independent voters and Democrats. Gallup polling conducted over the past six weeks found Trump with a -27-percentage-point net favorability rating among independent voters, and a -70-point net rating among Democrats; both marks are easily the worst in the GOP field."

      http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/donald-trump-is-really-unpopular-with-general-election-voters/

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    3. Alan Kurschner wrote:

      " You hold no credibility with me: 'Trump is a fad, 'Trump is not electable,' Trump does not appeal to democrats, blacks, and women.' All proven wrong."

      Instead of interacting with what I've said, you've put words in my mouth and have said that I was wrong without explaining how you supposedly know that. By contrast, when I've interacted with your material in the past, I've quoted what the articles you've cited have said, I've explained why they're wrong, provided documentation, etc. You keep giving us drive-by emoting in response to facts and reason.

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  6. I don't know Alan, and have no personal opinion about him or his views, but he's stated previously in threads that his basic motivation/goal politically is the destruction of the Republican party.

    A lofty goal to be sure, and one that explains an otherwise irrational and impervious support for Trump.

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    1. That is correct. The Republican Party has sold out to big business (i.e. cheap labor). We need a new party to protect the liberty of its citizens.

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    2. Yet Trump *is* "big business" personified. And he's not a third-party candidate, he's a Republican candidate. And of the leading Republican candidates Trump fits the RINO appellation better than anyone, since he could easily be a right-of-center Dem given his historical policy views.

      Am I wrong?

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    3. Big business does not support limited immigration. Trump does not need donors from big business so as to sell his soul to the devil. He is his own man.

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    4. Well, that was sort of my point about Trump personifying "big business". I mean, the devil can't sell his soul to himself.

      And I'm not suggesting Trump is the devil. It's a figure of speech. Besides "big business" doesn’t mean much, it's just a throwaway term.

      You don't seem to be willing or able to engage reasoned and reasonable arguments against Trump in good faith. That's not a healthy sign. You might strive for a bit more objectivity here.

      I assume you're a Christian, and if so you must understand that Christ is in control, and as important as many earthly matters are, let's keep in mind that everything here will be burned up one day, and let's not lose focus on eternal things.

      Just saying.

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    5. Alan, if supporting illegal immigration is your criterion for a RINO, then both Cruz and Trump are RINOs. Both are on record as path-to-citizenship candidates.

      Also, what evidence do you have that Trump will finance a presidential campaign out of pocket?

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    6. For those who don't know, we've explained many times why immigration isn't the most important issue and why immigration views like Trump's current ones are unlikely to be implemented anytime soon. Alan has never explained why we're supposedly wrong. His focus on immigration in this thread doesn't make sense, and he hasn't interacted with the counterarguments.

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    7. Trump said he'll build a wall with a big beautiful door in the middle of it, kick all the illegals out, and then let the "good" illegals just kicked out turn right around and come back in through that big, beautiful door. This is de facto amnesty for millions.

      Trump also said he will get things done because he's "a deal maker." What deals will he make? With who?

      We have SCOTUS elections coming up. Who would a prez. Trump nominate? He's previously said his gay, pro-abort sister would make a good SCOTUS appointee.

      Support for Trump comes down to believing he's not lying about his changed positions. What should we think here? Well, we have a test case: his profession of being a bona fide bible reading evangelical. Given his comments on the bible and Christianity, we know he's lying. So, seems to me we have a defeater for taking his word in other areas.

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    8. Trump's disingenuousness about religion probably does reflect his disingenuousness on other matters. That's a good point.

      For those who want to read more about what Maul P. is referring to concerning Trump's sister and the Supreme Court, see here. Trump has also said that he admires Clarence Thomas. That's one of the problems with Trump. He's been all over the map, including in recent years, even recent months. He may appoint another Clarence Thomas to the Court. Then again, he may appoint somebody like his sister. Given how much he seems to make decisions based on personal interest, there's a good chance that at least some of his judicial choices will be more like his sister than Thomas.

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    9. Talk of RINO is problematic. I may do an analysis sometime. It seems we can distinguish between act-RINO and vision-RINO, I'll assume these designations are self explanatory (this assumes we know what RINO means, but put that to the side). Citing Rubio on immigration (putting aside that I think his stated position is rather defensible) seems at best sufficient for act- but not vision-RINO. But I'd wager 99% (if not 100%) of Republican congressmen (both houses) could be tagged with some instance of act-RINO or other. So this seems uninteresting. When it comes to being a vision-RINO, it seems obvious that Rubio simply isn't one. And it isn't even close. Neither is Jason Engwer. However, it's at least (at best) *not clear* whether Trump is a vision-RINO. Thus, it's not clear what Alan means by calling either Rubio or Enger "RINOs" while simultaneously saying that Trump is not, given my above distinction.

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    10. It's like the No True Scotsman fallacy. What are the distinctions between a "true" Republican and a RINO? What is the definition of a "true" Republican so we can select for RINO traits? Who or what is our standard of comparison?

      It all seems very silly and meaningless to me. Just empty talk without substance.

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    11. Once analyzed, it means "dumb sumbitch with political opinions slightly to the left of mine."

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  7. For the record, and this has been on record for a long time:

    My number one choice has been Jindle, #2 Cruz, and #3 is Trump.

    I will never vote for a RINO again. The last time I did was in the early 90s--Bush. Never again. The young pups will learn. But not any time soon.

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    1. You say you will never vote for a RINO again, yet in the very same comment you say you'd vote for Trump. What makes Rubio a RINO rather than Trump?

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