Andres Oppenheimer says Ted Cruz bid is good news for Democrats

[Xavier_Onassis]

Andres Oppenheimer is the Miami Herald's resident Latin America columnist



U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s announcement that he is running for the Republican presidential nomination is great news for Democrats: He will push the other Republican hopefuls to the right on immigration, further scaring away Hispanic voters and making it more difficult for Republicans to win next year’s elections.

The Canadian-born son of a Cuban father and a U.S.-born mother, Cruz — a first-term Republican senator from Texas — is one of the most rabid critics of President Obama’s executive action to regularize the legal status of up to 5 million undocumented immigrants, most of them Hispanic.

Cruz has called on Congress to defund Obama’s measures to give temporary legal status to undocumented immigrants who pay taxes and meet other conditions, and has supported greater local police powers to ask people who are detained on the street about their immigration status.

Not surprisingly, a recent Latino Decisions poll found that, despite Cruz’s Hispanic heritage, he has little support among Latinos. The poll of Latino support for several Republican hopefuls, including Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Rand Paul and Cruz, found that Cruz and Paul were the least liked among Hispanic voters.

Only 24 percent of Latino voters said they would consider voting for Cruz, while 73 percent said they would not consider voting for him, the Latino Decisions poll said. Comparatively, 32 percent said they would consider voting for Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor — a moderate on immigration issues — while 62 percent said they would not consider voting for him.

The conventional wisdom among political pundits in Washington is that Cruz, a darling of the Tea Party, has little chance of winning the Republican primary, let alone the 2016 general election. He is widely perceived as too dogmatic, too fanatical and too inexperienced to run for president.

But Cruz’s decision to be the first Republican hopeful to announce his candidacy has drawn a lot of media attention, and may force fellow Republican presidential hopefuls to move further to the right in order not to be perceived as “soft” among ultra-conservatives in the primary states.

Frank Sharry, head of the pro-immigration America’s Voice think tank, told me that Cruz’s candidacy “will push the Republican field to the right on immigration, making it more likely that whoever emerges from the primary will be unelectable in the general election.”

What about the argument that whoever wins the Republican primary can later change his views on immigration in the general elections, and that most Republican voters would understand that?

“It doesn’t work that way,” Sharry said. “Mitt Romney’s statements on immigration during the primaries, when he referred to ‘self-deportation’ and said that the Arizona law should be a model for the rest of the country, defined him as a candidate in the general election.”

Republican organizer Richard A. Viguerie, head of the ConservativeHQ.com website, celebrated earlier this week that Cruz’s announcement will have a major impact in the Republican primaries. “Every Republican candidate for president will have to move significantly to the right, starting with Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, and define their position on amnesty for illegal aliens” and other issues, he said on his website. “They will all have to move right to respond to Cruz, or be left behind by a grassroots conservative electorate fed up with Republican candidates who are merely principle-free messengers for an out of touch Washington elite.”

My opinion: If Cruz’s campaign gets traction, Republicans will be shooting themselves in the foot once again for failing to pay attention to the Hispanic vote.

A big majority of U.S. Latinos vote Democratic, and most pollsters agree that any Republican presidential candidate would need between 40 percent and 44 percent of the Latino vote to win a general election.

The last Republican president, George W. Bush, got about 44 percent of the Latino vote in the 2004 election, and won. By comparison, Mitt Romney, a centrist who adopted an anti-immigration rhetoric during the Republican primaries, was defeated by Obama by 71 percent to 27 percent among Latino voters in the 2012 election.

The big question now is whether Bush, the last remaining moderate on immigration issues among the big-name Republican hopefuls, will shift to more anti-immigrant views during the primaries.

If he does, we can already anticipate the results of the 2016 elections: Barring a big surprise on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton will carry the bulk of the Hispanic vote, and be the next U.S. president. She must be Cruz’s biggest cheerleader these days.
About Andres Oppenheimer
Andres Oppenheimer
@oppenheimera
Andres Oppenheimer is a syndicated columnist, and anchor of the TV Show "Oppenheimer Presenta." He is a member of the Miami Herald team that won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize.
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[sirs]

While the prospect of a Hillary nominee is golden news for conservatives   

[Xavier_Onassis]

The percentage of "Conservatives" is smaller than in 2012 and 2008.

Plus, they stand for stupid ideas like the pich should pay even less for taxes and all the poor should pay taxes and no one should be entitled to health care.

Hillary is conservative for  Democrat.

Note that Oppenheimer is (1) an expert on Latin Americans and (2) believe that Cruz is  bound to be very unpopular with them, which is true.

[sirs]

This country is majority center right.  But you are correct in that Hillary is more conservative than Obama.  Pretty much everyone is.  And the more Hillary hangs on to those hard core liberal ideas Obama has been pushing, that the majority of the country doesn't support, combined with her outright incompetence as a public figure.......well, like I said, golden for for Conservatives in this country   

[Xavier_Onassis]

You are dead wrong, This country is NOT rightwing, you live in a sheltered environment and have not a clue.

Ted Cruz is despised by his own party. John McCain calls him a "wacko bird". That is because he is indeed a wacko bird. He even sounds a bit like a chicken being plucked.

There is no gold anywhere for the reactionaries you call "conservatives". 

[Christians4LessGvt]

This country is majority center right. 

You are correct SIRS....and that's why we are likely to continue controlling Congress.
Obama knows this and that's why he is pushing the envelope of Executive power.
Obama knows Taxocrats will more often that not control Executive branch
and the Republicans will more often than not control Congress.
And that's why he is trying to undermine Congressional authority into the future.
The dude knows exactly what he is doing!

[sirs]

You are dead wrong, This country is NOT rightwing, you live in a sheltered environment and have not a clue.

Do you have trouble reading?  I have to ask since I clearly indicated "CENTER RIGHT", AS IN NOT RIGHTWING   

FACT is, majority speaking, we are a center-right country.  And no, Cruz is not despised by his own party.  Far from it.  Established country club Republicans and RINO's may not like him, McCain being a perfect example of both, but the vast majority of the party has no problem with him.

As in he's no more whacko than our current, twice elected White House whack job

[Plane]

You are dead wrong, This country is NOT rightwing, you live in a sheltered environment and have not a clue.

Ted Cruz is despised by his own party. John McCain calls him a "wacko bird". That is because he is indeed a wacko bird. He even sounds a bit like a chicken being plucked.

There is no gold anywhere for the reactionaries you call "conservatives".

You seem to be rejecting the idea that there is a pendulum like ebb and flow oscillating in politics between conservatives and liberals.

Since the last few years have been controlled by the most socialistic president we have ever elected , this might be a good time for you to hope that the bob gets stuck at the apex on the left.

But ... President Obama has enacted and encouraged as much of his favorite policies as he was able   the liberals should be sated, frequently frustrated conservatives are the ones who should now be angry and energized.

BTW... I don't want to argue that most of the nation is more conservative than the average. I would rather argue that the present president is a long way to the left of that average.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I do not believe that is true.

Obama has not done anything socialistic other than healthcare, which even the most conservative regimes in the industrialized world have already adopted.

And once again, Cruz is quite unlikely to get many votes for being Hispanic, because he has done so many things and advocated so many policies that Hispanics dislike.

[sirs]

Cruz doesn't need "the Hispanic vote".  He'll require the rational voter, or more so the Anti-Obama voter

[Xavier_Onassis]

Cruz will probably peak in Iowa and then his support like that of Santorum and Huckabee, will fall away The Country Club Republicans are the ones with the money. The Wall Street Republicans do not liker him for shutting down the government, which was an asshole thing to do. That leave the Tea Partiers, a bunch of aging White guys, Sons of the Confederacy and other assorted dolts that are essentially penniless.

 

[Plane]

........................the most conservative regimes in the industrialized world have already adopted.

............

This makes me curious.

What conservative regimes are you referring to?

And is there  regime anywhere that has something close to Obamacare?

I can't consider the AHCA much of a success at this point, the number of people receiving health care is modestly improved , coverage is still not universal and cost has risen generally.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Switzerland, Germany, Austria, take your pick.

Ted Cruz himself enrolled his wife in Obamacare I hear.

[Plane]

Switzerland, Germany, Austria, take your pick.

Ted Cruz himself enrolled his wife in Obamacare I hear.

 Switzerland has socialized medicine?

Let me look that up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Switzerland


What do you know!

The Swiss are using something of the same nature as Obamacare.

It is simpler and cheaper , but it is alike in the basic idea.

Swiss are required to purchase basic health insurance, which covers a range of treatments detailed in the Swiss Federal Law on Health Insurance (ger: Krankenversicherungsgesetz (KVG); fre: la loi fédérale sur l’assurance-maladie (LAMal); ita: legge federale sull’assicurazione malattie (LAMal)). It is therefore the same throughout the country and avoids double standards in healthcare. Insurers are required to offer this basic insurance to everyone, regardless of age or medical condition. They are not allowed to make a profit off this basic insurance, but can on supplemental plans.[2]

The insured person pays the insurance premium for the basic plan up to 8% of their personal income. If a premium is higher than this, the government gives the insured person a cash subsidy to pay for any additional premium.[2]

The universal compulsory coverage provides for treatment in case of illness or accident (unless another accident insurance provides the cover) and pregnancy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Switzerland

[Xavier_Onassis]

Switzerland is a seriously conservative country.

Women got the right to vote there in 1971.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_Switzerland