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I've already given my opinion on this, but the prime candidate would have been Marco Rubio. You've got a real conservative that's been successful in a swing state, a likeable guy with outstanding favorability ratings and cross-party appeal, a strong policy wonk that hasn't lost touch with the average person, and an Hispanic with an incredible story and a charismatic delivery all rolled into one. That's general election gold, and the poll numbers back it up. In the alternative, Scott Walker would have been a great candidate. He shares all of the characteristics I outlined for Rubio minus the Hispanic heritage and immigrant story. I'll also take Kasich based on his poll numbers, record, swing state delivery and experience. Bush and Christie would have been acceptable, though definitely not my first choice. Nobody else really had a chance in the general. No you wouldn't. The primary and the general election are two entirely different animals. If your premise is that someone who's capable of winning the general should also be capable of winning their primary, then Ronald Reagan couldn't have won the 1976 general election simply because he lost to Gerald Ford in the primary, and none of those "real conservatives" y'all love so much, like Newt Gingrich, could have won the 2012 general because they couldn't beat out Mitt in the primary. The establishment didn't dislike the Tea Party. In fact, the Tea Party that existed in 2010 was the Republican party's dream. I considered myself a Tea Party member back then. If it was still what it was back then, I would still consider myself one. But it's not anymore. It's gone from a conservative dream to an American nightmare. There's a much longer answer that elaborates on why that is, but in an attempt to adhere to your request for short replies, I'll simply leave you with two words: Donald Trump. This isn't merely some "threat to establishment power." This is a threat to basic common sense, the conservative movement and American freedom. Trump is gaining support from Tea Party supporters, yes, but don't think for a second that it's just because "the establishment has failed to act" or because they think Trump somehow buys into the conservative philosophy. I could go into more detail about this, but there's a great study that covers this, so I'm just going to post a link to it. [Hidden Content] Regardless of our difference of opinion on Cruz, all of this anger at the establishment that's being fomented by this kind of rhetoric, whether intentional or not, is not helping him. It's just increasing this phenomenon, and sending more voters who are susceptible to it into Donald Trump's camp. For the GOP nomination? At this point, nobody. If the rest of the party had consolidated behind a single candidate earlier in the primary, or if some of our candidates had joined in the calls for him to drop out after his first few rounds of racist and sexist statements instead of going into an extended bromance with him in the hopes of one day appealing to his voters, we might have been able to stop him. Too late now. For the general election? Oh, make no mistake, the Democrats could put up a yellow dog and he'd win. Liberals, moderates, independents and a pretty strong crop of conservatives aren't going to vote for this guy, and the numbers all confirm it. The only way I could possibly see him winning is if a disaster on par with the Great Depression or 9/11 strikes between now and election day.

I would prefer that you not infer a tone in my writing that you don't know to be there. And I reiterate my statement. I have watched every single one of Barack Obama's statements on race, from Trayvon Martin to Michael Brown. I may not agree with his statements, but there is nothing there to imply that he is attempting to sow racial tension. To assume that there is, coincidentally, analogous to inferring tone in a written statement. You may or may not know this, but I attended The University of Alabama. While I was there, I directly fought an organization that quite literally burned crosses on campus, spray-painted racial slurs on campus buildings, broke into campus offices in the middle of the night to defame the applications of black applicants for student positions with written racial slurs and actively opposed the integration of campus sororities. Until I have some kind of evidence that indicates you've seen something remotely similar, I'm not going to entertain a notion that you might understand a black man's perspective on race, particularly when you infer animus on the part of the nation's first black president simply because he's spoken out about racial issues. Perhaps you should condemn Donald Trump, the man who's called for a ban on immigration from an entire class of people based solely on religion and characterized people of a particular nationality as a bunch of "rapists" and "thugs," with the same fervor if you're so concerned about national leaders sowing racial division. The idea that something was "all Obama could get" when his party controlled both houses of Congress is laughable. If he had been just a hair more adept, he could have passed much, much more. He may have taken a beating in the midterms, but that was already coming anyways. It wasn't that Obamacare was all he could get, it was that he had no idea what he was doing. Now would he have signed a single payer healthcare system into law if the bill were put on his desk? Perhaps, but it doesn't matter. That's irrelevant to the point I was making, which is simply that whatever his philosophy may be, he has not governed as far to the left as smitty likes to make him out to have done. Thank you for effectively making my point for me. He floated Cap & Trade and it went nowhere, and he's tried to get some pollution caps placed on a few other world powers through treaties. That's been about it. If anything, the pollution caps he tried to get in place with other countries would have helped level the playing field in terms of environmental regulation between the US and countries like China and India. That would have hurt their economy, not ours. Even if all of that had passed, do you really think Obamacare, which literally just tried to expand health insurance coverage albeit through terrible legislation, and environmental regulation somehow compares with Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the CCC, the WPA, the Department of Housing & Urban Development, and the Department of Health & Human Services? Because domestically, that's (not quite) all of "LBJ's and FDR's crap." Obamacare and Cap & Trade look puny compared to those. The bottom line is that, at least for their time, LBJ and FDR both governed much farther left than Obama has. They passed way more legislation; LBJ is, to date, the most successful president in history at getting his legislative agenda passed. Obama has never even been in range of passing either of them. And once again, the mere fact that he attempted to pass legislation you don't agree with doesn't make him some evil overlord that's come to destroy the country. You're gonna need a little bit more than that to substantiate your accusations. He's intentionally tried to destabilize our relationship with every country around the world? You mean like Cuba? Because that relationship was so much stronger before he got into office. Aside from a dicy relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu, there is no evidence anywhere that Obama has conducted his foreign policy with malice either toward another country or the United States. I'm not going to act like his foreign policy is great - frankly, it's been a trainwreck in many areas - but failure does not equate to a culpable mental state. Much as I hated his apology tour, it's pretty hard to say that a guy who went around apologizing to a bunch of different countries was intentionally trying to hurt our relationship with them. It's hard to say he was trying to hurt our relationship with the Saudis when he bowed to their king, or that he was trying to ruin things with the Russians when they tried the reset. Actually, I limited myself to the examples that you provided, so technically, you forgot about James Rosen. But since you brought him up, however creepy it might be for a reporter's phone to get tapped, it wasn't Obama who did it. Holder did it, and he got a warrant first. You know what that means? Two words: "probable cause." Rosen's phone was tapped as part of a criminal investigation into a leak that involved classified information. At least so far as we know, it ended up being a dead end, but that still means that at some point, they had evidence that founded a reasonable belief that Rosen could be involved in criminal conduct. I don't see how following the constitutional procedure for carrying out an investigation into criminal conduct involving classified information somehow constitutes a scandal merely because the subject of the warrant is a reporter. But hey, what do I know? I'm just some law school student. Let's assume for the sake of argument that it is a scandal. If it is, it still doesn't compare to a president sending political operatives to raid the headquarters of the opposing party in the middle of the night, or using Treasury resources to fix the price of gold and crashing the entire economy in the process, or selling missiles to a sworn enemy to finance a foreign rebellion. "Laid the foundation for" as in "set the stage for." I never said he was solely responsible, I was just saying that it was his administration that accelerated the march toward civil war. I reiterate, Buchanan had opportunities to, at the very least, delay the war. He chose to pass up on them in favor of an occasional fiery speech criticizing everybody in Congress. Mighty fine leadership right there. Don't tell me you're going to go with the "faithfully execute the laws of the United States" argument.... Obama's executive order didn't grant amnesty for anyone. The only thing it did was direct the Attorney General to prioritize illegal immigration cases that involved other crimes over those that did not in a broadstroke exercise of prosecutorial discretion, citing judicial efficiency concerns. It's an abuse of the prosecutorial discretion doctrine, I grant you, and one that will be struck down as such, but it's not some outright violation of the written text of any democratically enacted law, constitutional, statutory or otherwise. I never said that I didn't consider illegal immigration a big deal. I'll thank you not to put words in my mouth. What I said was that I don't get how you think allowing people in the country illegally who haven't committed any other crime to stay here for the time being is somehow comparable to, much less more serious than, a genocidal campaign that removed an entire race from their native lands and resulted in the deaths of millions. I also said that I don't get how you think an executive order stretching a judicial doctrine beyond into legal gray area is somehow comparable, much less more serious than, to utterly defying a United States Supreme Court decision. You want to make Obama's executive order out to be in blatant defiance of the Constitution when it's not, and justify Andrew Jackson's heinous actions against the Cherokee - some of whom were my ancestors - based on "good intentions" when it shredded the Constitution. And you really think an executive order that stretches the prosecutorial discretion doctrine is somehow bigger in scope and scale than Truman's order to seize a steel plant in defiance of Congress, or FDR's executive order to create those internment camps we've been talking about? Yeah, not buying that. So an inherently heinous action is all peachy-keen if it was done with the best of intentions? There's an old saying I grew up with. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. You have no evidence that Obama is intentionally stoking racial tensions. You're right. It is your right to have that opinion. And as I said in the previous post, I'm appreciative of the fact that, unlike many on this site, you're at least willing to give reasons for that opinion. But I think it's an incredibly poorly founded opinion based on inferences, rushed conclusions and a selective reading of history. I think you'd do well to understand that a mere difference of opinion in politics does not equate to malicious intent. Go back and read my post. I didn't try to interpret your intentions. I kept that focused on smitty, and by intention. And I'll come out and say it: I have every reason to believe that smitty's trying to divide people along political lines and inflame tempers based on political leanings. It's hard for me to believe otherwise when, in this thread alone, he's accused two posters of being "socialists" in a derisive manner merely because they don't always agree with him, and characterized me as too young to know anything. That's just the latest example in a long line of such behavior extending back five years now - we're talking about a man who literally won't capitalize the names of most Democrats and refers to the president as a "man-child." I can no longer deduce any other possible motivation. But, like I said, it really doesn't matter. smitty's gotten his way. The establishment won't get this nomination. The party's gripped in chaos. We're going to go forth with either Ted Cruz or Donald Trump as the nominee. And you know what? We're going to get smashed in this election as a result. So, I really don't have to care. He and his ilk are gonna reap what they sow.

Before I actually answer, thank you. It's about time somebody on this site actually tried to discuss substance again. Now, with that out of the way, you had the right intentions, but you answered the wrong questions. That particular set of questions was meant to be more rhetorical than anything else. The questions I really want smitty to answer are the ones about Cruz that were blown up, emboldened and underlined. That having been said, since you've provided some substantive answers to the rhetorical questions, I'll return the courtesy. We agree that Carter was more inept than Obama was. You extended that answer to say that Carter at least had his heart in the right place, and that you don't believe Obama does. I agree that Carter had his heart in the right place. I disagree that Obama doesn't. Is Obama way, way further to the left than I am? Yes. Is he further to the left than every prior US president? Philosophically, perhaps, but in terms of the policies he's implemented and the way he governs, no. He has one signature legislative achievement to his name: Obamacare, which doesn't even remotely resemble a single payer healthcare system and really has little to do with healthcare at all and more to do with health insurance, where the goal was simply to expand coverage. However ineffective and poorly designed it may be, I can hardly put Obamacare as far left on the political spectrum as the various welfare bills passed by LBJ and FDR. In any case, that's tangential to the point I wish to make, which is that however far left Obama may be in regards to how he governs, there's no proof - not one scintilla - that he's motivated to destroy or weaken the country to any significant degree. He may have different opinions and different views than you or I do, but that alone is not enough to convict this man of some immoral desire to degrade the United States. At best, the argument could be made that he wishes to diminish our stature in the world with regard to our prominent role in world politics. That, too, is not proof of some desire to destroy the country; I vehemently disagree with it as a matter of policy, but I cannot deny - nor can anyone on this site rationally deny - that between the massive strain of our worsening domestic issues, growing tensions with rising powers such as Russia and China and the sheer extent to which we have over-extended ourselves on the world stage over the last decade and a half, we need a break from handling the rest of the world's problems for a while. In regards to corruption, I'm not going to sit here and say that Obama's administration hasn't done some seriously corrupt things, but that is specifically why I raised the Grant comparison. Grant's rap sheet is a mile long, and makes Richard Nixon look like an angel. It runs the gambit from illegal alcohol distribution rings where profits were earmarked for reelection campaigns, to bribes paid to customs officers to sneak goods into the country for political backers, to salary raises for elected officials and appointees passed by Congress and signed by the president literally in secret, to framing innocent people for crimes to prevent them from blowing whistles, to illegal price fixing using Treasury resources that literally crashed the entire economy, just to name a few. I don't see where Obama's really done anything that approaches the volume or severity of those scandals. And while we're on this subject, we can expand to look at more than just Grant. Was Fast & Furious terrible? Absolutely. But is it worse than, say, selling missiles to Iran to come up with blood money for rebels in Nicaragua? Not really. Did Lois Lerner abuse her powers of office to target conservatives? Absolutely. Was that terrible? There's no doubt about it. But is it somehow worse than firing two attorneys general and a special prosecutor to stop a probe into a presidency that ordered political operatives to break into, ransack and bug the headquarters of the opposing political party? Doubtful. The statement about Buchanan isn't "bogus." Was the Civil War inevitable? Conventional wisdom suggests it was. That doesn't mean it had to start in 1861. Buchanan was presented with multiple opportunities to, at the very least, carry out a delaying action. He responded with relative ambivalence. In regards to the Jackson comparison, has Obama abused executive authority? In my opinion, yes. But that's also pretty commonplace in American presidencies. Most presidents try to carry their executive authority to the limit. It's the nature of the office, and the very reason checks and balances exist. The question is how bad Obama's use of executive authority is in the context of all American presidents. I picked Jackson specifically because he's the worst case scenario. I really don't get how you can take a bunch of executive orders that try to interpret existing law in a manner favorable to executive power to let a bunch of people who aren't supposed to be in the country stay here if they haven't committed any other crimes, and somehow think they're even comparable to, much less more serious than, an American president blatantly, openly and intentionally defying a United States Supreme Court ruling so he could carry out a genocidal campaign against an entire race. Obama's never done anything even remotely like that. And while we're at it, if we just want to compare executive orders to executive orders, Obama's on track to issue fewer executive orders by the time he leaves office than Bush 43, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Nixon and Eisenhower and Truman - every post FDR president except Bush 41 and Kennedy. Where the FDR comparison is concerned, once again, a difference of opinion does not equate to a difference of morality or character. There is no credible evidence - none, whatsoever - that Obama is intentionally trying to create some serious racial divide. You could make the argument that he's done a bad job of healing racial divides, and that he's inadvertently exacerbated them, and frankly, I would agree with that. But that doesn't mean he's trying to foment them, and there's still nothing he's done that even remotely approaches locking up an entire American racial demographic in internment camps, or fighting a war of extermination, as did the presidents who carried out the Indian Wars that you conveniently forgot to mention in your answer. Don't sit here and mistake your misunderstanding of a black guy's perspective on race as a sign of malice. That brings me to your last statement. I didn't "have to" pack the wrongs of several presidents into one post to try and lessen the significance of Obama's wrongs. I could, if I wanted to, do a side-by-side comparison of Obama to one or a few presidents on an individual basis. But that would be lost here. The point that smitty and so many other angry, hard right wing activists out there are trying to make is not that Obama is worse than one or a few presidents, but rather that he's worse than all of them. It's an extreme argument - frankly, it's an overt attempt at polarizing political demonization. An extreme argument that makes extreme points requires a response that brings things back into perspective. The fact of the matter is that there is no objective measure by which you can say that Obama is the worst president in history. He may a bad president - I would argue that he is - but if we, as conservatives, as Americans, and as honest, ethical people, are going to effectively make our case, we have to make one with a healthy amount of perspective. We have to make one that is genuine, and not merely overblown rhetoric that makes mountains out of mole hills and tries to take things out of context. We have to be reasonable. The less reasonable we are, the less seriously people will take us. In exaggerating things to the extent to which smitty and others like him have done so, we undermine our own cause. If you don't believe me, just wait until November, because you're going to learn this lesson the hard way when Hillary gets elected.

Wait, are you a socialist too!?

My God! Nappyroots is a socialist too! It's a conspiracy, y'all! Get your guns and make it for the town square! We gotta purge these folks from the population, and fast! So, ready to answer those questions yet, smitty? Or are you just going to dole out more rhetoric? I couldn't help but notice you took a couple days to come back to this thread, but that didn't stop you from posting in others. What's the matter? Scared to face the truth?

Socialists! You hear that, westend? You're a socialist now! You must hate America! Cowabunga, Comrade! Can't help but notice you're still not answering those questions I posed. What's the matter? Can't think of a good rhetorical one-liner to come back with? Or is calling people "socialist" just the first line of defense in the angry right-wing handbook?

I've never read any of Garland's opinions, so I can't comment on where he stands politically or philosophically in regards to how the law should be applied. That having been said, assuming his label as a moderate is accurate, this is a politically brilliant move by the Obama administration. We have numerous Republican senators facing reelection in blue and purple states this year. They already have a tough row to hoe for that reason alone, and the chaos in the GOP presidential primary isn't making that any easier. Obama throwing up a moderate and daring a GOP-dominated Senate delegation that's backed itself into a corner with its own base to go with the "we won't even take him up for consideration" strategy helps shake up GOP support among independent and moderate voters, and blows yet another hole in the hull of those GOP senate campaigns. You can say what you want about Obama, but he plays the game very well.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." - The First Amendment to the United States Constitution Y'all are plain text folks. Where, exactly, does it say that Freedom of Religion only applies to US citizens?

You mean someone on your own side of the aisle shows some independent thought and it was praised by one or two slovenly liberals!?!?!?!? It must be wrong! He must be a RINO plant here to stop true conservatism! Burn him at the stake! Come back and respond when you're ready to provide an answer to all the questions I posed in my prior posts. Until then, you're just another political hack willing to say and do anything to blindly advance somebody else's cause.

Most of which was probably wasted.

No, Bush 41 lost during a recession. It's common for changes of power to take place in the midst of economic hardship - in fact, if there's a single variable you can link major shake-ups in the line-up in Washington to over the last several decades, it's the shape the economy's in. That was the case in 1992, where you can trace the polling data that had Bush 41 ahead of Clinton literally up until the week of the election. Economics drives elections. So Nixon gave us the EPA. Are you saying we don't need the EPA? And how his presidency ended has nothing to do with the fact that he was elected two landslides that have only been outdone by other Republicans. And no, Romney didn't lose to the worst president in history. Why? Because... *NEWSFLASH*: Barack Obama is NOT THE WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY!!!!! Shocking! I know! Seriously, are you actually so blindly caught up in all the rhetoric that you believe that? Do you really think Obama could compare to Jimmy Carter in ineptitude? Do you think he's as corrupt as Ulysses Grant? As lazy and indifferent as James Buchanan, the man whose inaction laid the foundation for the Civil War? As abusive of executive authority and the constitution as Andrew Jackson? As evilly caught up in racial tensions as any of the presidents that carried out the massacres of the Indians, or even FDR, the man who put every Japanese American in the country in internment camps? For the love of God, man, come to your senses. I'm not going to sit here and say that he's been a good president, because he hasn't. It's hard to make the argument that he's been a decent president. But he is not, by any means, the worst in history, and to say so is to exaggerate in the same way that so many pundits do, further driving the polarization and the demonization of the other side that is ripping this country to shreds. For the last five years, I have watched you make post after post and start thread after thread where you throw out these half-baked articles that masquerade as "journalism" from all these grassroots, far right-wing media organizations that come across normal day-to-day operations that are just part of governing, and think they've stumbled onto the next great clue Barack Obama's plot to take over the world, never bothering to even try to get some kind of opinion from someone with actual experience in governing to add context to whatever it is they're reporting on because all they want to do is jump to conspiratorial conclusions. And do you know why they're doing that? *NEWSFLASH*: Because They Want To P*ss People Like You Off, So You'll Go To The Polls And Vote For Whoever They Tell You To Vote For More shock! Seriously, how do you think we end up with crap like this? Do you think this is just coincidence? Or do you think this is the tactic of people who have turned phrases like "establishment" and "RINO" into dirty words they can use to slander elected officials who haven't really done anything wrong, but just don't go along with the hard right on every single issue? Do you actually believe that there's some great benefit to you, or any other average person, if the Republican establishment up and crumbles in the middle of this election? Do you think that's somehow going to make it harder on the Democrats? Do you actually think the people who are leading you down this path, spewing all this rhetoric and fomenting all this anger, are somehow on your side? Do you think they really have your interests at heart? Or is it really in their interest to take over an entire party and destroy the establishment political players, and they're just using you as a willing dupe? Let's forget about Donald Trump for a minute and take your conservative messiah, smitty. Ted Cruz. Do you actually think he's as anti-amnesty as he says he is? Do you really believe a guy who... SPECIFICALLY WORKED FOR THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION ON THE 2006 IMMIGRATION REFORM PACKAGE THAT INCLUDED AMNESTY ... is now all of the sudden against it? Do you believe a man who... IS ON VIDEO ADVOCATING FOR A PATH TO LEGALIZED CITIZENSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE ... is really as anti-immigration as he's telling you he is? Do you believe a man who... LITERALLY CHANGED HIS VOTE ON AN EXPENSIVE CROP INSURANCE BILL IN THE MIDDLE OF ROLL CALL ON THE SENATE FLOOR BECAUSE HE WAS REMINDED ABOUT THE IOWA PRIMARY ... is really as committed to fiscal conservatism and budget reform as he says he is? Does that sound like "consistent" conservatism to you? Or does it sound like someone's spoon-feeding you things you like hearing, and doing something totally different behind your back? But the worst part of this isn't that you're buying this rhetoric and blindly following the people who are spreading it, it's that you're helping them spread it around and pull off this whole gimmick. You've let yourself get so caught up in all the anger and the bluster that you're furthering it. Every time you post one of those articles or deliver yet another rhetorical one-liner, you're helping move people one step further along down that path anger, and hatred, and blind political rage. But hey, you know what? That's fine. I really don't care at this point. Honestly, I find it funny, because while you're pushing this narrative along with your other super conservative buddies so y'all can try and get this... ... all you're doing is stoking the flames of anger, making sure that more GOP voters sign up to nominate this... ... which is just gonna end up buying us four years of this. I just hope you finally learn your lesson when it happens.

Was my post a response to you? Nope. Pretty sure that was smitty I quoted. I'm not "fond" of the establishment. Frankly, I have a lot more reason to hate the Republican establishment than you do. But unlike some people on this site and out there in the electorate, I'm not letting my anger with the "establishment" or any other element of the party leave me politically deaf, dumb and stupid. Good horse sense counts for a heck of a lot more in politics than being upset with somebody ever will. And yes, I am very much aware that you can "study" the political environment outside a classroom. You know how you do that? Things like working on campaigna, working for a legislator, helping draft legislation and digging through mountains of polling data. When did you do any of that?

The establishment was also behind the both Bushes, Nixon and Eisenhower. And when Bush 41 ran the second time, and when Dole ran, it was against a Clinton. It's kind of peculiar how half insane billionaires have a way of popping up in the Republican primary and threatening to run third party every single time there's a Clinton in the race and stiff establishment competition on the Republican side, isn't it? But hey, what do I know? I'm just some dumb college kid, remember? I didn't spend four years studying this or anything. Y'all go ahead and keep marching to your political graves. We'll see how you feel come November.

2016.

The "establishment" was behind the candidate that could win. Mark my words, Donald Trump cannot and will not win the presidency of the United States.

Y'all better get used to the words, "Madam President," because we're all gonna be saying 'em a lot more after November.

Ted Cruz isn't half the man Ronald Reagan was.

Buddy, that's no conspiracy theory.

What you heard was correct. Make no mistake, the establishment does not like Ted Cruz, and frankly, they have very, very good reason not to. But Ted Cruz will set the party back a decade whereas Donald Trump will send it down in a blaze so cataclysmic that it will go down in history as the most divisive end to any American political movement, ever. Between those two poisons, the establishment will pick the former.

^ That, and as much as I hate to say it, in American politics, there are some people who are just made of Teflon.

Not that it's hard to do or anything.

On the bright side, he won Minnesota. No more of that "he hasn't won anything" crap.

I'm just saying, if it's Hillary versus Trump, I'm voting for Gary Johnson.

Super PACs are supposed to be independent, although as pointed out in a previous post, they often trade staff with the campaigns, employ friends or big financial backers of the candidate, etc. I'll be fair. Where his campaign is concerned, Cruz has one of the best grassroots operation in the race. He's received more small donations as a proportion of his overall fundraising total than any other GOP candidate. But the truth is the polar opposite with respect to the Super PACs that support him. And you'll notice that in that same metric, Rick Perry places third, and he hasn't been in the race for months. Here's a friendly word of advice. If you ever want to find out who really makes the tea party movement in the State of Texas work, take a drive around Uptown the next time you're in Dallas. You're bound to run across seven or eight of 'em. The candidates may come from Houston, but the money comes from the Metroplex.

World travelers? One of them's never even left the country. And that's beside the point, which is that a couple of Libertarian economics grads aren't going to go for anything even remotely resembling a "central planner." Which, by the way, isn't inextricably tied to government spending; we don't have a centrally planned economy right now despite the spending, and we've had quasi-centrally planned economies during war efforts in which we spent less than we do now. In any case, you have more reason to believe Rubio's sincerity with regard to the debt based on his actual record than you do Cruz.