I agree that it's shrewd. It's an obvious win if Trump loses, which I still consider likely. If he wins, it'll be a bit iffy but I think Cruz still has enough support in Texas to be re-elected in 2018. Then he'll be free to try for the Presidency again in 2020, attacking Trump's presumably horrible record from the right.
1: I don't think it's an obvious win if Trump loses. No matter what happens there's a significant percentage of Republican voters who will continue to love Trump, and those people will hate Cruz forever now.
Everybody hates Cruz already. It's shrewd inasmuch as the Trump campaign is obviously a runaway truck heading for a cliff, but Ted Cruz is never, ever going to get elected president, regardless of how much scheming and plotting he does now.
It's an obvious win if Trump loses, which I still consider likely.
Not obvious, at least. (Although there is a contrary analysis on TNR from Beutler.)
Could Cruz not actually get maximum evulz from being Attorney-General? And that position will be plausibly available to him in all future R administrations, maybe not even excepting Trump.
Playing it into something he could try to spin in either direction as the wind shifts made it seem slimy. (Ted Cruz: seems slimy! Not breaking news.) If he wanted to disassociate himself he should have skipped the convention, a la Kasich or Bush (and others). If for personal revenge (which he claims was his motive) he wanted to stand on stage at the convention and publicly stab Trump in the back, he should have publicly renounced Trump on stage. "Vote your conscience" was a dodge, and everyone knew it. He was boo'd because it wasn't an edorsement, but he was also boo'd because it was such a transparently slimy non-endorsement.
7: Yeah, I have a hard time getting people talk about honor and dignity when what he said (which I happened to turn on the TV in time for) was so calculated to sound nice but be variously interpretable.
I mean, I don't think he can play it in either direction now that he has admitted that it was intended as revenge, but I suspect that was his original intent. I doubt he expected the reaction to be quite so fast and so furious. (Because again, if he did, why be subtle about it?)
I don't know if it was a mistake or not (I suspect not), but I don't see how that wasn't a public renunciation of Trump on the stage.
Cruz as Attorney General would be horrible. He makes Ken Starr look like a decent human being. I can't imagine the witch hunts he'd launch.
It was clear suicide (intentional or not), at least as far as ever being president.
I'm not going to say I endorse #7, but you should vote your conscience.
I don't buy the loyalty argument. Trump has shown he has no concern for loyalty and he's doing fine.
i really disagree with 7. I don't think he was trying to walk any edge whatsoever - he was giving the middle finger to Trump.
He was at least trying to win a bunch of applause with his other material (he even mentioned building a wall) before the bombshell, if it was so intended. Remember he was comfortable sending the text to the campaign - possibly he thought it would go under the radar until next time? But the use of the word "conscience", which is now code, speaks against that.
The interesting thing tonight will be if Trump lashes out against Cruz.
15: I agree that he was intentionally giving the middle finger to Trump. But he was doing it in a cowardly way. He wasn't saying anything to directly challenge or oppose Trump.
I actually have not watched/read/heard one iota of Cruz's speech, and have been forming my opinion entirely from spin.
Right--Cruz's speech was seen by Trump's people beforehand. It was subtle enough that they weren't bothered by it.
He was boo'd because it wasn't an edorsement, but he was also boo'd because it was such a transparently slimy non-endorsement.
Do you seriously think he would have been booed less if he had said something, like , "I cannot endorse Trump, because I cannot endorse a fraud"? He might have been lynched.
Obviously, Cruz didn't stand up and say "Fuck Trump and the horse he rode in on," but he had on a long sequence about values and freedom and you need to vote for freedom and then he didn't mention Trump. That seems pretty explicit, if not direct.
I don't know why Trump's people allowed it, but there's plenty of evidence that they suck at vetting speeches.
He might have been lynched.
That's not right. These are Trumpists we're talking about. They would have lynched Cruz's wife.
Right--Cruz's speech was seen by Trump's people beforehand. It was subtle enough that they weren't bothered by it.
Huh, I thought he went off-script at a couple key lines. Maybe I just assumed that.
There are some reports that Trump people knew what was coming and that the crowd's reaction ("Endorse, endorse" plus booing) were scripted.
I laughed and laughed and thought that it was Cruz being Cruz. But this morning I wondered if it is all kayfabe and if I got played. Especially given Trump's background.
26: Right? The best kind of kayfabe, where it is also real, or at least a long-running script.
21: no, he would have been boo'd the same amount, because everyone immediately saw right through his statement. But yes, I think he believed he would be boo'd less saying what he said instead of what you've proposed. And I think if he'd said what you proposed, he'd have gotten the same number of boos, but it would actually have felt moderately heroic (even if only a personal vendetta) instead of all-around slimy.
However, let's take a moment to pay tribute to Eileen Collins, who masterfully abused the RNC's desperation for worthwhile speakers, and deliberately skipped over her scripted closing endorsement of Trump, leaving the speech a paean to space exploration / plea for NASA funding.
A voter id law could help to avoid Trump, and would have maybe prevented Brexit, assuming that you're only allowed to vote using your ego or superego.
I actually read the whole thread on the assumption that Moby would have already made that joke
24: Cruz's speech was delivered, word for word, from the text he shared with the Trump campaign.
Another link on the Texas ruling. Unfortunately they sum up as "This is a win for the plaintiffs, no doubt, but not nearly as good as getting the law thrown out for everyone", because the ruling is consistent with merely setting up relief procedures for those adversely affected, e.g., merely somewhat larger hoops to jump through.
33: Not 100% word-for-word, but in the key non-endorsement "conscience" section, yes. I think I read he adlibbed a throwaway line thanking the NY delegation (i.e. the Trump family) when booing started.
"Never forget that Trump came to reality TV by way of pro wrestling. [...] Martin Longman is right, someone orchestrated that chaos. The New York delegation is Trump's core people. They knew when going apeshit would put Cruz in a certain light. Look at Trump's entrance during the Cruz speech and ask yourself how he would have timed it so well if Cruz's speech surprised him. Remember, Cruz did not drop the not-endorsing bomb out loud until just before Trump walked in. Trump read the speech. He talked about it with Cruz."
So what's the play here? That this gets more attention than wall-to-wall Hillary demonization? That it sets up a heel-face turn by Cruz today (or a month from now) when he decides to endorse Trump after all? I don't see how this is supposed to help.
The play is for attention, and for letting the villain take a turn and rile up the audience before the good guy comes back.
How does that work with two villains?
Screenwriting conventions often have two villains. Cruz is the phony villain who is easy to defeat. We won! But wait, the movie isn't over yet. Next week the Big Bad has her own convention. An existential threat! But surely the hero will prevail.
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My high school won the 6A (largest division) Texas honor band and I am beside myself with happiness.
As many of you know, I grew up in a border town where my parents were public school teachers. The high school I went to was about 99.5% Mexican-American with extremely high levels of poverty. The border fence that went up under GWB passes straight through the heart of one of the main neighborhoods served by the school.
The concert band programs are extremely competitive compared to other states -- probably the most competitive in the nation in terms of number of great ensembles and average competitiveness. This is due in part to money pouring in to marching bands from the football programs and in part to the University Scholastic League, which fosters extracurricular competition in just about every subject between schools. The band competitions are dominated by wealthy suburban schools where almost every student is enrolled in private lessons beginning in middle school and sometimes earlier. Often, these bands will additionally have extra staff to manage individual sections.
The band programs in Brownsville (and especially the one at my school) are surprisingly competitive in this system, regularly placing students into the all-state bands despite the fact that there are no private lessons whatsoever. The parents have no money for them. Instead, the band directors work 14-hour days to make sure that private lessons are available to every -- and I do mean every -- student that wants them and is willing to practice on their own to prepare. Leaders in the band are delegated responsibilities to organize section-level rehearsals.
Lopez High School just placed first in the major annual state wind ensemble contest in the largest, most competitive category, where recordings are submitted and judged by a blind panel. An extremely poor, almost entirely Mexican-American community wiped the floor with programs with public and private budgets exceeding theirs to an almost comical extent. They'll play a showcase concert in Austin at TMEA next year.
The head director at the school is a guy named George Trevino. George is an extremely competitive, intense person that had a short temper with people who he didn't feel were meeting their responsibilities to the group. Almost militaristic. If he felt someone was giving anything less than their best, he would very angrily call it out. But it became pretty clear to me at some point when I was in school that he knew what an underdog that band was and what underdogs those kids were, and he was so single-mindlessly committed to making sure they didn't even think about it and just gave the world hell anyway. And they did. And for the poverty level at that school, an astonishing number of them have made it to remarkable places in life. The school had no AP science classes, for example, and multiple people I went to school with have gone on to top biomedical science PhD programs (which matches their insane work ethics remarkably well). They really have continued to go and do the stuff that anyone else would tell them they're not supposed to. George is a one in a million human being if I've ever known one.
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That is a super heartwarming story! Good for them.
That's great news and a lot to be proud about, pseud. I appreciate hearing it!
I don't get the obviousness of the pseud, but that's good news. I read the one about the migrant graves this morning so it was good to hear something positive about the area.
It's ok, Moby. You will understand when you are older. I'm glad y'all like the story.
:)
Also Moby I had a phone interview with a biotech company today for a programming job that I think went reasonably well. If I get it, I'll look forward to grunting in solidarity again before taking a swig of coffee when you make jokes about dealing with biomedical scientists.
I have also made the long-term decision to punish myself by taking the plunge and doing the whole comp bio (or applied math, depending on who wants me, but I've gotten assurance from people who matter that they'll take me in comp bio somewhere pretty good) grad school.