See, this is how you handle a situation where somebody’s Photoshopped your head on a tattooed street punk[*] and distributed the posters all over LA. By correcting the record:
Saw this, but noticed an error. So I wanted to make one thing clear: I don't smoke cigarettes http://t.co/3nn2740kkP pic.twitter.com/tPFNqg9vu8
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 15, 2014
But I gotta agree with Chris Moody, here.
@tedcruz You played this exceptionally well. But you'll get super points if you make it your Twitter avatar.
— Chris Moody (@moody) March 15, 2014
That would be totally boss, if people still say that and maybe even if they don’t.
Moe Lane
*For the record, ‘tattooed street punk’ is not meant as a pejorative in this context. I got nothing against tattoos, although I’ve never felt the desire to get inked.
Yeah, this is one reason why I think Ted Cruz would be a good Presidential candidate, he has a very good sense of humor.
–
Contrast that with Barack Obama and his supporters and they’d be calling people racist.
By the way, was this supposed to be an insult or a what? Are lefties posting those posters to mock or are fans of Cruz making them?
I assume that it was there to mock, but I’m not really sure why they thought that it would. I mean “That ain’t me. I don’t smoke.” wins Cool Points right there and disarms the mockery to boot.
If it was intended to mock Ted Cruz, I don’t see it being all that effective. Ted Cruz just shrugged it off, made a comment about the fact he doesn’t smoke and that’s all the attention he gave it.
–
One of the things Ted Cruz is good at, is simply shrugging off personal attacks and being able to take legitimate criticism in stride. This is something that many on both the left and the right often struggle with (moreso on the left, but I’ve seen people on the right with similar issues in dealing with legitimate criticism and differences of opinion). I can handle legit criticism and differences of opinion, but sometimes personal attacks can still cause me to lose my verbal temper.
–
The traits of a good sense of humor, the ability to not take criticism personally, and the ability to engage people on issues even if they don’t agree with you are reasons why I believe Ted Cruz would be a good President. You can often win people over to your side in a debate by not resorting to personal attacks and instead presenting reasoned arguments as well as deflating emotional rants with a humorous one liner. I’m not saying we shouldn’t criticize actions taken by Democrats, but those criticisms should be based on the facts, not Saul Alinski style personal attacks. The establishment seems to be unable to understand that criticizing Democrats using facts isn’t “mean-spirited,” and the public generally has no problem with those kinds of ads.
–
Example:
I have a friend who was a liberal, whom we often got into political debates over topics, he once asked me if I hated him because he was a liberal, and I responded by telling him no, I don’t mind the fact he has a different opinion, which surprised him (sometimes being on the spectrum can be a good thing, considering people like me tend to be very bad at deceiving other people on anything).
–
He eventually started to become a lot more conservative than he was originally, I believe some other people would have written him off and considered him an enemy.
–
He ended up changing his position on things over time, because I presented reasoned arguments that were thought out and presented in a logical manner, instead of resorting to name-calling. I will admit most people on the spectrum would have blown a gasket when presented with someone whom had a seriously differing position from themselves, I’m lucky in the fact I was taught to try to consider multiple points of view, before deciding on something.
–
Sorry about the long-winded response, I just felt this warranted a lengthy explanation.
Good explanation, garfield.
.
I like Cruz, and look forward to his run for Governor.
.
I will not support him for president until he runs a State, even though I agree that he would be a good *candidate*.
.
Worth noting that, in 2008, the Dems ran a good *candidate*, and look how that turned out.
.
Mew
I’m afraid 2016 is too early for Ted regardless of executive experience.
Too many people within the Party want to abandon him the same way they did Goldwater.
I for one don’t want to lose in 2016.
If not him, then who?
–
I’m being serious, there are only a handful of people I can think of that would be Presidential material that I can think of, and TBH Rick Perry (unless he’s had a major improvement in his debating ability) isn’t one of them.
–
Senator Cruz has already demonstrated he has an ability to lead and we need someone whom is able to avoid getting caught in verbal traps.
–
Btw, Obama was never a good “candidate,” let’s be honest about this, if the mainstream media hadn’t been shills for him, he wouldn’t have won in 2008 (despite the fact McCain wasn’t exactly the best of candidates), he was far too radical and he already had quite a baggage that would have sunk his campaign if the media had actually given it the scrutiny it deserved. Ted Cruz’s temperment is a lot different from Obama’s, Obama is very thin-skinned and unable to handle criticism (a charecter flaw that is seen with people on both the left and the right).
–
Mitt Romney had been a governor, and quite frankly he was a lousy candidate, he only barely won the primaries due to ridiculous expenditures of resources and the fact the MSM was shilling for him because he was about the easiest one for Obama to beat. To be honest, I don’t think he would have been a good President either, he wouldn’t be the disaster that Obama is, but I wouldn’t rate him above mediocre.
–
The key thing that people fail to realize is Democrats rely exclusively on using “group think” in order to keep people from thinking, along with appeals to emotion. The candidate for 2016 on our side needs to be able to poke holes in the arguments with witty one-liners, and Ted Cruz seems to be very good at it.
garfield, no offense, but Obama was a successful candidate, which counts for much.
.
As for “who else”, are you serious? Take a look at every State that currently has a GOP Governor and tell me you don’t see some talented people, ‘kay?
.
Mew
Obama had the advantage of the MSM being more interested in having his babies than reporting the news…
–
As far as GOP Governors are concerned, yes there are some decent people, but do I think many of them can win, not really. Remember part of the argument for Romney to be the nominee was the fact he used to be a governor.
–
I do think some GOP Governors wouldn’t make bad Presidents, but I don’t think many of them have the charisma necessary to counter the media advantage the Democrats enjoy.
A win for Cruz and I think it’s great. If it was meant to mock, it backfires. It actually has an endearing quality which is attractive to the rogue, young independents. Ted actually ‘acknowledges’ it and only disavows a slight error–the cigarette.
Think about how it squashes the image of the staid white guy which the GOP is infamous for.
It’s a nice contrast from Pajama Boy.