Carly Fiorina, Who Was Right About Ted Cruz: I Was Wrong About Ted Cruz

cruzfiorina2016

On Wednesday, Carly Fiorina was given the rare opportunity to be on the right side of an issue. Unfortunately for her, that issue was new best bud Ted Cruz, so Fiorina decided to be wrong.

Shortly after she was announced as Cruz’s running mate, Fiorina was asked about her newfound support for the man she previously (and accurately) described as a politician “like any other” who fights with “no honor” and “says whatever he needs to” to get elected. From Mediaite:

NBC News’ Hallie Jackson said, “One of the things I’ve heard you say on the campaign trail… is that Ted Cruz is like any other politician… Today you said he is who he says he is. So were you wrong?”

Fiorina responded, “Yeah, and that’s why I voted for him in the voting booth.”

Cruz/Fiorina 2016: “Because I Was Wrong”
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I don’t write about politics all that much here, and this particular campaign is particularly distasteful (I logged off Facebook a couple of months ago and am staying off until the election is over because 75% of newsfeed is about it & I’m sick of it), but I think this is an interesting development. Ted Cruz picked Carly Fiorina as his running mate, despite the fact that he is not actually the Republican Presidential Nominee, and is very unlikely to be. Most political pundits can’t figure out the purpose of this, with the only logical speculation being that Cruz thinks this could help bump him up in some of the remaining primaries? But even if he wins them all, it’s too late.

Let’s be clear, Donald Trump is going to be this years Republican Presidential Candidate. All these fantasy scenarios floating around about a contested brokered convention, with the delegates giving the nomination to someone else, possibly even someone who is not a current candidate, like Paul Ryan, are a waste of time. It’s not going to happen. Donald Trump has by far the most votes. Even if he doesn’t reach the exact number of 1,237 needed to clinch the nomination (and he only needs 241 more, and there are 571 left to win at this point), he will be in the lead by a large margin. The Republican Party leaders would be committing political suicide if they awarded the nomination to someone other than the man whom the vast majority of Republican primary voters have voted for. It would be the ultimate betrayal of democracy, and Trump voters aren’t exactly known for their meekness, so they just wouldn’t stand for it. It would tear the party apart. And then the GOP would have ZERO chance of winning the White House in November. So, like it or not, they will need to, and I believe they will, rally around Trump in the general election and go all out to help him win. So unless Trump voluntarily drops out, or is killed or becomes otherwise incapacitated before the convention, he will be the 2016 Presidential candidate.

So this Cruz stunt is ultimately pointless, however, it has made me think: why isn’t this normal? Why don’t Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates run together for their parties nomination? I mean, think about it, when a person runs for their party’s Presidential nomination, voters have to evaluate that candidate’s ability to run the nation. So you vote for the person you want, they get the nomination, and then they tell you who they are going to be running with? How does that make sense? The Vice President is a very important position. It’s just as important as the President, because this person has to theoretically be able to take over the office of the President at a moments notice. So when we chose whom we want to run for President, shouldn’t we know who that person plans to choose as their Vice President, so we can evaluate them both? It seems to me that that should be a pretty standard rule, so we would know upfront exactly whom we’re getting.

Doesn’t that make sense?

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