"Why I Want Ted Cruz To Win GOP Nomination -- And Flame Out In The General" -- John Amato

John Amato, progressive political blogger on "Crooks and Liars" explains why he prefers Cruz as the Republican candidate for the general election.   He starts out with the understanding that, in the minds of conservatives, conservatism cannot fail.   Republicans fail only because they are not conservative enough.

In this view, all the recent Republicans who lost their presidential races -- Bush 41 for re-election, John McCain, Mitt Romney -- lost because they weren't true conservatives.  At least, when they became losers, that was the answer.

The corollary to this is that you also have to be angry.   Amato concludes that:  "Anger is the driving force behind modern conservatism."  Trump is not the true conservative, but he does voice the rage "in the kind of simplistic AM talk radio jargon the GOP base has longed to hear a candidate express. . . . "

Ted Cruz expresses that same anger, but he frames his outrage "around staunch, religious right wing conservatism.   The "entire AM hate talk radio circuit from Rush Limbaugh to Mark Levin [to Glenn Beck] love Ted Cruz."  And they choose him because he combines that rage and the bona fide conservativism.

The Republican establishment is desperately trying to stop Trump;  but, if he does get the nomination and goes on to lose the general election, Amato says: 

". . . they will always have their get-out-of-jail card right in their back pockets. They've already expressed . . . that Donald Trump is not a conservative, so when he is resoundingly beaten in the general election they can wash their hands of him and say once again, conservatism doesn't fail, only the candidate does. 

"However, if Cruz gets the nomination . . . [and then] loses, they will have nothing to complain about except maybe to blame the mainstream media for the loss. . . .

"I want Ted Cruz to be the nominee so the conservative movement cannot deny the reality of America.  It's not the candidates that are failing conservatism, it's that conservatism is failing America."

*   *   *

 That makes a lot of sense to me.   But it still feels like such a risk that either of them could actually become president.

Ralph