Fresh from debate, Cruz looks to Super Tuesday for advantage

Few in the conservative grass-roots question his standing as a true believer.

While the candidates pressed their cases in interviews Wednesday and prepared to set off on the last stretch of campaigning before a likely holiday lull, the debate seemed to confirm the volatility of the race in New Hampshire and beyond, adding little clarity as to which man or woman might emerge as the favorite among center-right Republicans.

Famed civil rights activist and People For the American Way board member Dolores Huerta also appeared in Nevada, ahead of the Republican debate in Las Vegas. Three months before that, under that same pressure from GOP talkers, Cruz backed out of supporting the White House’s Trade Promotion Authority, which had become a lightning rod for conservatives anxious about appeasing the White House. The attacks have ignited a political debate about President Barack Obama’s campaign to defeat the Islamic State in the Middle East and the nation’s security posture in preventing attacks in the U.S. Now, Rubio today said you can’t attack ISIS without a strong military, and he’s criticizing military spending cuts which Cruz has supported. Rand Paul, who both said the USA has higher priorities than ousting Assad. “He may be short-term in his thinking here”.

“You have to ask them about that”.

Ted Cruz has coined a new term in the fight over immigration: “undocumented Democrats”.

“Does Ted Cruz rule out ever legalizing people that are in this country now?” “There’s no right left”, said Tyler.

“I am personally open, after all that has happened and after 10 years in probationary status, I am open to a green card”, Rubio said. The willingness to use nukes to make it clear messing with America is suicidal is entirely consistent with what some have called the “Jacksonian” tradition in American foreign policy, which has long exerted an emotional pull among the conservative white working-class Americans who arguably form Trump’s base.

More broadly, Rubio’s campaign is eager to cast Cruz, who prides himself on being a conservative “truth-teller”, as a politically expedient flip-flopper who is willing to say whatever is necessary to win an election. Trump still sits atop the GOP field, displaying a talent for connecting with voters frustrated with Washington and on edge about the threat of terrorism.

And so some Cruz critics lay the blame for Cruz’s moves at the New Yorker’s feet.

Donald Trump is joined by his wife Melania in the spin room following the CNN Republican presidential debate at the Venetian Hotel & Casino on Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2015, in Las Vegas. “He’s going to be the darling of the people who have fear in their hearts”. Cruz has indeed been against an explicit path to citizenship for people in the country illegally, but he introduced legislation in 2013 that proposed eventual legal status for millions of them. 12 million. Do you know how many illegal aliens, George W. Bush deported?

Rick Tyler, a campaign spokesman, confirmed that Cruz unequivocally now does not support a path to legalization.

“My stance on immigration has been consistent”, Cruz told reporters in California when asked about his hardened stance. “That’s an important moment of candor”.

THE FACTS: Cruz repeatedly inflated estimates of how many Syrian refugees the Obama administration plans to admit to the United States. Instead, he told the Senate in June 2013, his bill would set up a process so that “those who are here illegally would be eligible for what is called RPI (Registered Provisional Immigrant) status, a legal status, and, indeed, in time would be eligible for legal permanent residency”.

For voters just paying attention to Cruz after his rapid rise, his past positions may remain merely fodder for rival campaigns. You know, they’re both senators from southern states with parents who immigrated from Cuba, but Cruz is unpopular in his own party, including among his colleagues in the Senate.

“If people realize he’s being duplicitous about those positions, he’ll kill himself”, Gross said.