Tea Party Republicans.

Tea Party’s Image Turns More Negative
Ted Cruz’s Popularity Soars among Tea Party Republicans

Unfavorable Views of Tea Party Have Nearly Doubled Since 2010The Tea Party is less popular than ever, with even many Republicans now viewing the movement negatively. Overall, nearly half of the public (49%) has an unfavorable opinion of the Tea Party, while 30% have a favorable opinion.

The balance of opinion toward the Tea Party has turned more negative since June, when 37% viewed it favorably and 45% had an unfavorable opinion. And the Tea Party’s image is much more negative today than it was three years ago, shortly after it emerged as a conservative protest movement against Barack Obama’s policies on health care and the economy.

In February 2010, when the Tea Party was less well known, the balance of opinion toward the movement was positive (33% favorable vs. 25% unfavorable). Unfavorable opinion spiked to 43% in 2011 after Republicans won a House majority and Tea Party members played a leading role in that summer’s debt ceiling debate.

The Tea Party’s favorability rating has fallen across most groups since June, but the decline has been particularly dramatic among moderate and liberal Republicans. In the current survey, just 27% of moderate and liberal Republicans have a favorable impression of the Tea Party, down from 46% in June.

Who Are ‘Tea Party Republicans’?The survey finds wide divisions between Tea Party Republicans and non-Tea Party Republicans in how they view major issues, some leading GOP figures and even the relationship between the Republican Party and the Tea Party itself. Tea Party Republicans are more likely than non-Tea Party Republicans to say that the Tea Party is part of the GOP, rather than a separate movement (41% vs. 27%).

Amid the continuing budget standoff between Republican leaders and the White House, opinions about House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell have slipped among all Republicans and Republican leaners – both those who agree with the Tea Party and those who do not.

Ted Cruz’s Popularity Rises among Tea Party Reps, Falls among OthersBy contrast, Sen. Ted Cruz’s popularity has soared among Tea Party Republicans while declining among non-Tea Party Republicans. Since July, as Cruz’s visibility has increased, his favorable rating among Tea Party Republicans has risen by 27 points – from 47% to 74%.

In July, Cruz’s image was mixed among non-Tea Party Republicans (26% favorable, 16% unfavorable); most (58%) had no opinion of the Texas Republican. Unfavorable opinions of Cruz among non-Tea Party Republicans have risen 15 points since then, while favorable views are unchanged.
Changing Views of the Tea Party

Tea Party Favorability Drops Across Party LinesThe decline in favorable views of the Tea Party over the past four months crosses party lines – Republicans, independents and Democrats all offer more negative assessments today than in June.

For Republicans, the decline is steepest among those who describe themselves as moderate or liberal. Today, Moderate Republicans Less Positive toward Tea Partyonly about a quarter (27%) of moderate and liberal Republicans have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party movement, down 19 points from June. Yet the Tea Party’s ratings have also declined among conservative Republicans, from 74% favorable in June to 65% now.

http://www.people-press.org/2013/10/16/ ... -negative/

The slide must be tough on the tri-corn hat industry.

The really good news is that several of the GOP/TP "young guns" shot themselves in the foot with this fiasco ~ I read somewhere the 2+ week shut-down cost us the taxpayers something like $24BILLION and about .5% in quarterly growth ~ just think ... if we can rid the country of TPers [including Issa's massive spending in search of a/any "scandal"], we can retire the deficit in a flash ~

Sooz

A sobering read ~ but I predict Ted Cruz will crash-and-burn long before 2016 ~ he's just tooooo narcissistic to survive ~ Sooz

The Ted Cruz Armageddon Is Coming
by Michael Tomasky Oct 18, 2013 5:45 AM EDT
A new Pew poll shows Tea Partiers’ devotion to the otherwise divisive senator. Can the Republican establishment stop him before it’s 2016? By Michael Tomasky

Did you catch Ted Cruz’s numbers in that Pew poll that came out this week? You may not have, because there were a few other things going on. So take a guess as to his favorable ratings among Tea Party people. I can tell you that 18 percent expressed no opinion, so the numbers add up to 82. So, 65-17, 68-14? Could he possibly have topped 70?

He sure could have. It was 74-8. Eight! It used to be 47-10 in a prior poll. In other words, a lot of people who weren’t able to form an opinion of him now can, and it’s swooning. Among non-Tea Party Republicans, as you’d imagine, a rather different story: It’s 56-44 (everyone has an opinion!). That’s favorable, but it ain’t 74-8. And in these numbers, among dozens of other auguries, we see the Armageddon that’s coming in the GOP between now and 2016. What on earth are the establishment Republicans going to do about this man?

Examine with me a few more numbers, from an earlier Pew survey taken over the summer. That one found that while Tea Party people make up 40 percent of Republican voters, they make up 49 percent, or roughly half, of those who vote in every primary. Got that? OK.

So now put the two surveys together: Half of the most loyal Republican voters approve of Cruz at 90-percent levels (74 is nine-tenths of 82). Still think he couldn’t win the nomination?

You better believe he can. The chance that he could win a presidential election is as close to zero as any plausible candidate’s chance could be. I think he tops out at around 180 electoral votes. But the nomination? Not. Impossible. At. All.

So I ask again: What are the establishmentarians going to do? What, for example, can Mitch McConnell do? Not a whole lot. Individual senators are pretty autonomous. Remember when liberals were screaming during the health-care debate, “Why doesn’t Obama give Ben Nelson the Johnson Treatment?” Because the Johnson Treatment doesn’t work anymore, least of all on the serenely messianic, of which Cruz is definitely one.

Can a group of establishment senators break him, as a previous cohort, led by Margaret Chase Smith, broke Joe McCarthy? They can try, and that might make some difference. Their success will depend to a great extent on where the right-wing media decide to land. Will Roger Ailes and the rest of them do what’s right for the party and the country, or for the ratings and the bottom line? Why do I not want to know the answer to that question?

Much will hinge on what happens in 2014, in the coming crisis negotiations and then in the elections. If Cruz overreaches in January, they’ll polish him off. He is presumably smart enough to know that he’s on probation. So my guess is that as the January deadline approaches, Eddie Haskell will start bringing the teacher some apples. He’ll behave. Oh, he’ll mis-behave just enough to signal to the peanut gallery that he’s still Eddie Haskell; the world’s Eddie Haskells can’t help themselves. But he’ll keep it in line. And if he’s very smart, he’ll do those little, sugary things that senators value so much—the hand-written note when the wife’s checked into the hospital, that sort of thing.

He’ll spend the rest of 2014 guiding the Tea Party like Columbus on the Santa Maria. Rand Paul will be back there on the Niña, and farther back, Marco Rubio on the Pinta, straining to catch enough wind to keep up. But everyone will know who’s holding the compass.

The elections will be crucial. If the GOP loses control of the House because of perceived Tea Party looniness, Cruz will be blamed and held accountable. As for the Senate, it’ll be just slightly more nuanced. We’re seeing now that all these Tea Party people are going to challenge establishment Republicans. If some of them win their primaries but lose the general to a Democrat—if, say, Nancy Mace, the Citadel grad, beats Lindsey Graham but then loses in the general, giving South Carolina its first non-racist Democratic senator since Fritz Hollings, who’s probably the only non-racist Democratic senator the state has ever had—Cruz will, again, be blamed and held accountable. But say Mace wins, and a few others do too, even if the GOP doesn’t take control of the Senate. And say the Republicans hold the House. That’s a slightly ambiguous result. But any ambiguous result is easy for a demagogue to spin into a great victory. It’s precisely the kind of thing demagogues do best.

If the results a year from now don’t give the establishment the excuse it needs to bury him, Cruz will be off to the races. And then, Armageddon will come. To whom will the establishment hand the silver cross and vial of holy water? Chris Christie? Jeb Bush? South Dakota Senator John Thune, who offends no one (not yet, anyway) and who quietly voted for the deal to reopen the government and avoid default?

This will be a war. And it just might be a war the extremists will win. Establishments have power and money, and it is true that Republican voters have typically, after all the noise, gone in the establishment direction (McCain, Romney). But the insurgents have been advancing the beachhead, and unless they’re pushed back once and for all, it’s only a matter of time. But an epic battle looms. I cry for what these maniacs are doing to my country, but at the same time I plan on enjoying every minute of it.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/18/the-ted-cruz-armageddon-is-coming.html

"Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta,[1][10] where his parents, Eleanor Elizabeth Wilson Darragh[11][12][10][13][14][15] and Rafael Bienvenido Cruz,[14][13] were working in the oil business.[16][17]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Cruz#Early_life

Not much of a tan in Calgary. Clearly eligible running for presnit!

Ted and his wife were not unnoticed during the Bush era.

Heidi Cruz's Experience
Vice President
Goldman, Sachs & Co.
Public Company; 10,001+ employees; GS; Investment Banking industry
Currently holds this position

Director Western Hemisphere
The White House
Nonprofit; 11-50 employees; Nonprofit Organization Management industry
2003 – 2004 (1 year)

Director Western Hemisphere
National Security Council
2003 – 2004 (1 year)

Economic Policy
Bush-Cheney 2000
1999 – 2000 (1 year)

Economic Advisor
Bush Cheney '00
1999 – 2000 (1 year)

Heidi Cruz's Education

Harvard Business School
1998 – 2000

Solvay Business School
MEB, European Business
1994 – 1995

And here is what George P. Bush has to say about Cruz when he endorsed him for Senate.

"Ted is the future of the Republican Party," Bush said in a statement. "He is a proven conservative, and his personal story embodies the American Dream. Like Marco Rubio in Florida, I am confident that Ted will inspire a new generation of leaders to stand up and defend American Exceptionalism."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/1 ... sh-Cheney#

LMAO

There it is again: American Exceptionalism