Pirate's Cove

Let’s face facts: there is really no path for Ted Cruz to obtain the requisite number of delegates to win the nomination prior to the Republican National Convention. He could certainly win on a 2nd, 3rd, etc ballot at the convention. But, what’s with this pick?

(Politico) Ted Cruz announced Wednesday that Carly Fiorina will be his vice presidential nominee if he’s the Republican Party’s pick for president.

If nominated, “I will run on a ticket with my vice-presidential nominee, Carly Fiorina,” the Texas senator said at an Indiana rally before the crowd began chanting “Carly.”

The two appeared together in an hour-long event in Indianapolis, with Cruz alternating between lauding Fiorina and maintaining that he has a path forward in the race despite suffering a series of losses over the last two weeks. Fiorina, who followed Cruz, shared stories about her own background and about Cruz, and even sang to his two young daughters from the stage, as she also railed against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard CEO, has been among Cruz’s most loyal and active surrogates since she ended her own 2016 GOP presidential bid after a poor finish in New Hampshire in February.

Carly gave it a good run, but, could never catch any serious traction during the race, much like quite a few of the other 16 candidates playing a political version of survivor. She spoke well, and she was never shy in attacking, get this, Democrats. Her focus tended to be more on attacking Democrats, and especially Hillary, rather than treating other Republicans like the enemy. Heck, I just listened to her smack Barbara Boxer around in a coherent, effective manner regarding a snarky Boxer tweet.

But, is picking Carly a good idea? If you look at On The Issues, she’s a politician who says the things Conservatives love. Anti-illegal immigration, pro-2nd Amendment, pro-business, anti-Obamacare, pro-government reform, pro-energy. She’s rated as a “libertarian-leaning conservative.” More right-leaning than either Trump or his (lately unhinged) surrogate Sarah Palin.

But, let’s consider what Doug Ross wrote in researching Carly Fiorina. A few snippets

• During her Senate run, she endorsed the California DREAM Act, which grants in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.
• During her failed run at the Senate, the former HP CEO received plenty of heat about “hundreds of millions of dollars worth of HP printers that were sold to Iran — despite a U.S. ban on trade with that country.”
• Her tenures at both Lucent and HP were complete debacles.
• After the Garland, TX terror attack, Fiorina likened Pamela Geller and her group of free speech advocates to “white supremacists demonstrating” and asserted that free speech is “provocative” when it offends Islamists.

And this on climate change

In a series of interviews from 2008 (when she campaigned for John McCain) to 2010 (when she unsuccessfully ran for the Senate against Barbara Boxer), Fiorina parroted left wing talking points on carbon credits, wind and solar energy sources, and the damage humans are causing to the planet via global warming. As recently as this year, she asserted that climate change is man-made. During her Senate campaign, she also refused to endorse California’s Proposition 23, which would have suspended the economy-destroying AB32 global warming law.

Of course, as I’ve said many times, I do not care if you believe in anthropogenic climate change, I care if you plan to instituted polices that require compliance by citizens. She seems to like those policies.

Doug also links to this Erik Erickson piece from 2010

Carly’s conservative record was thin to nonexistent, and there were many troubling signs that she held liberal views. From her praise of Jesse Jackson, to her playing the race and gender cards against DeVore, to her support for the Wall Street bailouts, to her qualified support for the Obama stimulus, to her past support for taxation of sales on the Internet, to her waffling on immigration, to her support for Sonia Sotomayor, to her Master’s thesis advocating greater federal control of local education, to her past support for weakening California’s Proposition 13, to her statement to the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board that Roe v. Wade is “a decided issue,” Carly Fiorina’s oft-repeated claim to be a “lifelong conservative” was only plausible in the universe of NRSC staffers who recruited her in the first place.

That bit is also repeated in John Hawkins’ piece The Conservative Case Against Carly Fiorina. He notes that she has many liberal positions, and is about as insider/establishment GOP as they come.

A Red State diary by streiff also discusses her non-conservative bonafides

To a great extent, Fiorina is a clone of Rudy Giuliani: a fairly liberal Republican with some good features.

Though we look askance at Trump when he suddenly become pro-life, we see that Fiorina had a come-to-Jesus moment on the same issue. Unlike Trump, she seems to have been politically pro-abort, acting as McCain’s surrogate to assuage fears among embittered pro-Hillary women that McCain was wooing in 2008. Was she a Judas-goat, deceiving these women? Or was she pro-abort? We sort of have to take it on faith that she isn’t yet another “5th Avenue liberal” to use a phrase that has gotten a lot of traffic recently and has legitimately changed.

The abortion issue really doesn’t move me all that much, it is a lower tier issue in my list of concerns. But, it is high on other Republican voters list, so, where does she stand? She seems to have flipped right around the time she decided to run for president.

She’s still better than most Democrats, let’s be clear on that. She’s more of the exact type of Republican needed in a heavily Democrat voting California.

But, is this good for Cruz? How does he go after Trump when he has a VP pick that has flipped on many positions, is a moderate establishment Republican, has held many liberal positions, all similar to what has happened with Trump?

Some wonder why I never seem to criticize Cruz. Well, here you go: I think this was a desperation move, and makes Cruz look weak. I have zero faith that this move will help out. Trump has too much momentum, and with the media discussing him non-stop, he will be the nominee.

Crossed at Right Wing News.