Let's just talk honestly about Cruz and the crap people keep trying to gin up about him (Other than the birther thing, because I've already addressed that in great depth in multiple places).
"Dirty tricks" and the Carson campaign - Let's be serious here. I've never personally attended a caucus, because my state has primaries, and I think that's probably true of the vast majority here. My understanding is that it's set up to be essentially a crazed, hectic free-for-all in which the supporters of each candidates try to convince the supporters of other candidates - and the undecided voters - to get behind their guy. Then the supporters stand up and get counted in front of God and everybody.
Carson's supporters have smart phones just like Cruz's do. Pretending they weren't right there, able to shoot down anything that was said on the spot, is disingenuous. The REAL "dirty trick" to the whole thing is the Trump supporters, Carson supporters, and media trying to fool everyone into believing otherwise. Oh, and Rubio and his supporters pretending that THEY didn't use the exact same news story in exactly the same way.
Furthermore, both Cruz and Carson got an overwhelming majority of votes from people who said they had made up their mind weeks ago, before ever coming to the caucus. The preponderance of undecided, made-up-my-mind-on-the-spot voters actually went to Rubio. Further-furthermore, to believe that Cruz won Iowa because of this is to assume that Carson would have otherwise massively over-performed his pre-caucus polling, to the point of more than doubling the number of votes he actually got. In point of fact, Carson got almost exactly the number of votes he was projected to get, and the math simply doesn't support the idea that this kerfuffle allowed Cruz to "steal" the caucus.
While we're on the subject of dirty tricks to sway voters, why don't we discuss other people - primarily Trump supporters - going around telling people that they can't vote for Cruz because he's not a citizen? How is "CNN has a story that Carson is going home to Florida after this" dirtier than "You can't vote for your candidate because he's not really eligible to run"? And THAT happy crappy is not only a blatant lie, but it's been bandied about a lot longer than just on caucus night. But you don't see Cruz pissing and moaning and sulking about it.
Or how about Rubio's supporters running around the caucus, telling Cruz supporters not to vote for him because he's pro-amnesty? THERE'S a little bit of hypocrisy for you, not to mention a lie. Or Trump smearing Carson as "a liar and a lunatic" during the campaign? Or any of a number of things Trump has said about his opponents, come to that?
Fact of the matter is, this is what caucuses are like. This is what they're DESIGNED to be like. Which, in retrospect, is probably why most states have primaries instead.
Meanwhile, of all these candidates, only Cruz has had the decency and integrity to offer apologies, even though none were really required. He has also demonstrated great personal loyalty by taking the hit and personally shouldering the burden for what happened, rather than throwing his staffers under the bus as Carson demanded.
Owned by banks - Again, let's be serious here. Campaigning for President is a very expensive proposition, and virtually no one has that kind of cash just lying around in their couch cushions, nor can they afford to liquidate and spend that amount of their personal fortunes (I'm looking at you, Donald). There is an enormous difference between taking a personal loan - which must be paid back with interest - to start a campaign, and getting huge donations - which are just gifts - or being paid ridiculous amounts for speeches - which are thinly-veiled donations.
Ted Cruz did what virtually everyone in America does when needing a larger sum of money than is on-hand: he got loans from lending institutions. I don't know anyone who feels "owned" by their mortgage banker, in the sense of having some sort of personal loyalty toward them. In fact, most people don't feel particularly fond of their creditors at all.
Are there corporations and wealthy people donating to Cruz's campaign? Sure. But this is not surprising, nor is it sinister. The wealthy are citizens of this country, too, and they have as much right as anyone else to donate money to the campaigns of candidates they feel will best govern they way they want. And Republican policies tend to be more pro-business than Democrat policies are. That's not really a bad thing, nor is there any reason to believe that Cruz's policies are or will be influenced by donors to be any different than they would have been, anyway. On the contrary, the reverse is true: they chose him for his policies, rather than him choosing his policies for them.
Did Goldman Sachs also donate to his campaign? Yes, within the legal bounds set by campaign financing laws. Is this surprising, given that his wife worked for them? One would assume that this would create some sort of positive feeling toward him. And so what? Under any other circumstances, we would be applauding a woman being smart and accomplished enough to hold down an executive position with a major corporation. But since the woman in question is a prospective First Lady, suddenly we're reverting to the 1950s and acting like cookie-baking homemaker is the only acceptable career, because anything else might create "favoritism" of some sort.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is out there, blathering about how he's completely self-financed, which is a bald-faced lie. Yes, he has so far shouldered a larger percentage of his financing personally than anyone else, because he can. He has also benefited greatly by shooting his mouth off like a lunatic and getting the media to talk about him for free. But anyone who thinks that state of affairs is going to continue all the way through to the election is delusional. He most certainly is accepting donations, and he most certainly is going to have to accept a lot more before this is over. There's nothing at all wrong with that, but let's be honest about it.
As an aside, I also think "only billionaires who can self-finance can run for President" is a ridiculous standard to set.
At some point, it becomes necessary to look beneath the surface at not only WHO donates, but WHY, and also at the character of the candidate in question. This is why examining voting records and past behavior is necessary. There is no reason in Ted Cruz's past to believe that his policies are anything but what he genuinely believes are good, or that he will not do his utmost to live up to his campaign promises. And really, how many candidates have you EVER been able to trust to honor campaign promises?
I'm not a goddamned "birther" either. Those are people who even when shown an US birth certificate, still try to gin up conspiracy theories. I and the others like me who studied American Government in high school and got a C- grade or higher understand that an actual bone fide birth certificate from Canada means Cruz can't run. Period. We are not "birthers", we are "high school graduates".
