In Ted Cruz's announcement yesterday it became clear that he has no intentions of ever being President. Ted knows he is the smartest person in the room, so he knows that his rightwing platform has no hope of winning
Anyone seriously running knows they need to gain the moderate vote in order to win. At no point in yesterdays speech did Cruz conced there was a middle ground on any issue.
So, what is Cruz doing?
He is staking out that he, and he alone is the true Conservative in the party. Let Rand Paul or any other conservative try to build a winning coalition and Cruz will attack them for abandoning conservatism
Cruz wants to be crowned the King of Conservatives for the next 20 years. Let all Republican candidates bow before him as he dictates what positions they must take to gain conservative support
That is where Cruz's power will be
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Your forgetting the primaries are not for appealing to the moderates and independents it's for appealing to the base. In 2008 Hillary believed she already had the base and started trying to get the moderates and independents in the primaries which allowed Obama to go farther to the left than her which the base liked and got him the nomination. The Republicans ran two unsuccessful campaigns with candidates they believed would appeal to the moderates but they did not appeal to the base and many stayed home. Can Cruz make that pivot to appeal to moderates and independents in the general election I don't know what we have seen is without the moderates and independents you might lose without your base you will lose.
But where are the numbers? Obama got 66 million last time, and the dems will get that again ... at least. Mitt actually took 24 states, to Obama 26 plus DC, yet Mitt lost by 126 EV. The only "big" state the gop has safely is Texas. The same demographic fact that makes it near impossible for the dems to take the House for the next decade makes it impossible to win a national election with just red states.
United States presidential election 2012 - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
It may not matter because the natl gop is going to muzzle the right wing this time.