Opinions from regular people

Wherein TheBlaze Blog lets you have your say.

From reader Dax H:

I watched Ted Cruz’s “sort of” filibuster last night gain significant fire from the left, and accolades from the right, sans John McCain. As to be expected. Months earlier I watched Rand Paul’s actual filibuster do nearly the same. While I sat and watched, I daydreamed about my perfect government with those two fellows leading it. President Paul (Rand, not Ron) has a nice ring to it, and Vice President Cruz does as well. Frankly, you could interchange the executive positions and I’m still ecstatic about the potential ticket.

Then, being the pessimist that I am, I started worrying about the bloodletting that would no doubt have to ensue during the primary. It always does, right? I thought about how it would pain me watching two great, freedom-loving libertarians try and destroy each other. How would that work? By my estimation, the two are so close on policy, you would be hard pressed to slip a piece of paper between them. What would they debate about? It’s a primary, and much like "Highlander," there can only be one. Hmm… moving on, for now.

Around noon, after Ted Cruz’s “sort of” filibuster ended, both Cruz and Paul hit up the TV and radio circuits to discuss. I caught most of this on the radio, flipping back and forth between Sirius and AM. What struck me was the ever so slight difference in messaging at this point. Hardly noticeable to the rabid left, as neither came off the “teabagger” position much, but clear as day to me. Cruz was still tossing out the red meat, while Paul opted for a more moderate tone. An ever-so-slightly higher road, even though he actively participated in the Cruz “sort of” filibuster.

Paul let some of the run-of-the-mill, non-participating Republicans off the hook, while Cruz was giving little quarter. At first I was a little miffed at Paul for letting the “RINOs” off the hook. I had just spent hours being fed delicious raw red meat by Cruz, reinforced by my fellow patriots on Twitter. Then it hit me. Together, they moved the conversation. They moved it right.  Good cop, bad cop. Engage.

The left spent the entire rest of the day vilifying Cruz and defending Obamacare. I won’t go into details, but pushing old women off a cliff was the least of it. The key point here: The left, and most the media spent all day on defense for the Affordable Care Act. This hasn’t happened much, and despite being right there filibustering with Cruz, Paul came out unscathed.

What if those two are working together? Or would? It makes good sense. Obviously, every Democrat is against them, and unfortunately most of the GOP establishment is too.  They are both running short on political friends, being as principled as they are. Yet, that fact is what their follows love about them. What happens in the primary when the moderator and the rest of the GOP candidates dog-pile the already-weakened-by-the-media libertarians?

In today’s media, with its leftist slant, there has to be a GOP bad guy. Enter Ted Cruz. He makes all the constitutional principled arguments. You know, the ones labeled “fit for anarchy” and “extreme” by the left. During the primary and election he drops constitutional cluster bombs and “Cruz missiles” for the media to berate while rubbing their collective nipples in the joy. He frames the conversation though his “unreasonable antics” saying things that “no serious candidate would say.” Ed Schultz, Chris Hayes and that cute boy on MSNBC would spend hours, as they already have, tearing him to shreds. They would do this with glee, too arrogant in the “snark feeding frenzy” to notice, the argument has been moved to the right.

Meanwhile, Paul slips through the primary cracks. The statesman. Together they slowly pick off the moderate Republicans, one by one, now that the argument is actually framed around conservatism and not some middle-left position pulled directly from the NPR moderator’s rear end. With this formula, the GOP might actually develop a candidate with some bold colors, not pale pastels.

A boy can dream.