Ted Cruz goes Full Metal Federalist on Colorado’s pot laws.

I’m fine with this.  Heck, ‘let the states decide’ is my go-to answer for these issues. We shouldn’t always test stuff in the states before we pass laws on the federal level, but it should be our default strategy.

In an one-on-one interview Saturday with The Denver Post, [Texas senator Ted Cruz] said he opposes legalization but declared that the U.S. Constitution allows “states to experiment.”

“I think on the question of marijuana legalization, we should leave it to the states,” Cruz said before addressing 6,000 GOP activists at the state GOP convention in Colorado Springs.”If it were me personally, voting on it in the state of Texas, I would vote against it.

“The people of Colorado have made a different decision. I respect that decision,” he continued. “And actually, it is an opportunity for the rest of the country to see what happens here in Colorado, what happens in Washington state, see the states implement the policies, and if it works well, other states may choose to follow. If it doesn’t work well other states may choose not to follow.”

By the way, I understand that there is a big argument out there about how safe marijuana is, really. So I’m not going to tell anybody that they’re wrong for opposing CO/WA’s laws. I’m just a guy who defaults to federalism on a lot of stuff.

Moe Lane

[UPDATE]: Must have highlighted/deleted some text.  Anyway, H/T: @sahilkapur.

Colorado/Michigan conventions today.

Ted Cruz should clean up in the remaining delegate races in Colorado; he’s almost certainly going to win the state at this point, and might very well sweep.  Michigan is more of a ‘deciding who gets to be a pledged delegate’ situation. The general vibe there is that the state Republican party is staying neutral in the delegate allocation wars and just trying to match up delegates with the candidates they support, and that’s their call.  For that matter: that’s actually helpful, on a second ballot.  Which is why you probably haven’t heard anything about Michigan this weekend, I suspect.

Surprise development in Colorado-05!

No, not that Ted Cruz got all three delegates there.  It’s what happened in the Colorado-05 Congressional race.

This means that Calandra Vargas will face off Doug Lamborn in the June primary, and be at the top of the list.  CO-05 is R+15, so even if there’s a disaster on the Presidential ticket after all the winner of this primary should still be OK. A buddy of mine was at the CO-05 thing, and he told me that Vargas sounded smart and passionate, and spoke well – and is apparently not affiliated with Trump, which would have been a deal-breaker right there. So keep an eye on this race.

Tweet of the Day, “Alright: Who Let The Bear Smoke Some Of The Marijuana?” edition.

That’s what I call it. “The marijuana.” Because of course it’s site policy never to imply ownership, in the event of marijuana. So I always use the indefinite article ‘the’ marijuana, never ‘your’ marijuana*.

But, yeah: somebody let the bear get toasted. Which is to be expected, of course. Colorado, you know.

Moe Lane

*Yes, it’s a classical reference.

Why this one, single Colorado Q-poll probably scares Democrats unduly.

The poll in question is mostly about pot legalization – which is a subject that the Democrats can’t quite capitalize on, given that Barack Obama and Joe Biden are strongly in favor of the War on Some Drugs – but not entirely. There’s also some polling of the Colorado Senate race. And… oh, boy: “In an early look at the 2016 U.S. Senate race in Colorado, U.S. Rep. Michael Coffman, a Republican, runs better than his wife, State Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, against Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet. Matchups show: Michael Coffman gets 43 percent to Bennet’s 40 percent. Bennet leads Cynthia Coffman 44 – 36 percent.” Continue reading Why this one, single Colorado Q-poll probably scares Democrats unduly.