Americans for Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist is praising the tea parties for “completing the Reagan revolution,” and credits their activism for making the GOP “infinitely stronger.”

Speaking in an exclusive Newsmax.TV interview, the anti-tax leader dispelled any notion that his recent criticism of the shutdown strategy of Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz was intended as a broader critique of the overall grass-roots conservative movement.

“My argument was that Ted Cruz, in particular, came to the House Republicans and said he had a strategy to abolish Obamacare,” said Norquist. “But he didn't have a strategy, because you need 51 votes in the Senate to do anything and we never had anywhere close to 51 votes -- and Sen. Cruz didn't get any.”

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/norquis...6#ixzz2jWD598bv
Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!

You people really need to understand cloture--Cruz was trying to force a 60 vote margin to close debate thus making harry get 60 votes instead of 51 if the McCain\Mitch group had stay together that would have happened

Yes that tells me that 18 senators get it--the rest are big government stooges--ie status quo

Quote: Eglman wrote in post #2

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You people really need to understand cloture--Cruz was trying to force a 60 vote margin to close debate thus making harry get 60 votes instead of 51 if the McCain\Mitch group had stay together that would have happened

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Quote: Weird Tolkienish Figure wrote in post #1

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“My argument was that Ted Cruz, in particular, came to the House Republicans and said he had a strategy to abolish Obamacare,” said Norquist. “But he didn't have a strategy, because you need 51 votes in the Senate to do anything and we never had anywhere close to 51 votes -- and Sen. Cruz didn't get any.”

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Zitat

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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/healthcare...-195824524.html

Health Care Shoppers Aren’t as Dumb as Obama Thinks

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No, that's not from FoxNews ...... That's from the LIBERAL media.

"Health Care Shoppers Aren’t as Dumb as Obama Thinks"

Ted Cruz could not have forced such a headline if he had set himself on fire.

As I type, that article now has exactcly 19,317 (nineteen thousand three hundred seventeen) comments and 99% of them are telling Obama and the Democrats to go to Hell because NOT delaying the ObamaCare mandates has FINALLY shoved reallity down America's throat.

What were the headlines during the shutdown?

"Ted Cruz Allowing Children with Cancer to Die" .... "Tea Party will destroy America's credit and economy" .... "Today's Top 100 Shutdown Horror Stories Thanks to Ted Cruz and the GOP"

Mark Twain once said, "Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel." Yet, in the Shutdown, that is exactly what Ted Cruz did. Right or wrong, Ted Cruz was NEVER going to win over the American people for the simple fact that THE LIBERAL MEDIA HAS OBAMA'S BACK.

That means that 70% of the American public hated the GOP last month and the reality of ObamaCare had never been experienced by ANYBODY. Blame the liberal media for that percieved reality if you wish (I do) but correctly blaming the media does not change the reality that the biased media is a very real force multiplier for the Democrats and Obama. Ted Cruz had ZERO chance of winning the propaganda battle and was GUARANTEED to have himself and the GOP painted as the villains in the eyes of the majority of the American electorate outside of the Deep Red regions.

Think about why we are now "the Reds". During the Cold War, "the Reds" were the Communists and the media networks alternated Red and Blue between the Democrats and the GOP every other election. Once the Democrats went Far-Left and "Reds" hit to close to home, the media made the GOP the "Reds" in every election. Hell, yes, the media has the power to manipulate. "Yeah! I'm a patriotic American! I'm as RED as they come!" If the media can play the people in "Red" states like a cheap fiddle, is it any wonder that the media could turn 70% of America against the GOP during the Shutdown?

If Ted Cruz had succeded in putting ObamaCare on hold for the year before the November, 2014 election, that would have been like Wellington preventing Napoleon from invading Russia in 1812.

Tactically, such a move would have been dumb, dumber and dumbest.

Look at yesterday's thread that showed the folks at Democratic Underground tearing each other apart as ObamaCare started hitting some of them right between the eyes. REALITY, not Ted Cruz trying to save ObamaCare from itself, is what is destroying ObamaCare now.

As I have mention before, I share Ted Cruz's "go for the jugular" Cuban traits. In my youth, I was just like Cruz. However, with more life experience, I have learned to control that Cuban passion because Victory requires fighting SMART and not simply fighting loudly.

The media has finally turned against Obama because 10 MILLION people who buy their own insurance (myself included) have gotten or will get cancellation letters. My policy is illegal because I do not have Maternity Coverage even though, last time I looked, I had two testicles. Not even the media can spin their way out of that and America is pissed off and scared. Rather than go down with Obama's lies, the media is now attacking Obama with both NBC and CBS taking the lead.

No matter how much conservatives hated Bil Clinton, the majority of America did not really care that Bill Clinton lied about sex. It did not affect them personally.

Obama's lies, however, are now directly impacting the insurance coverage of millions of Americans and directly impacting American wallets. America now cares very much about Obam's lies and they want Obama's head on a platter. The media is now responding to customer demand.

All of America is focused on watching ObamaCare crash and burn, right before their eyes, right NOW, because the mandates went into affect NOW and some still think that Ted Cruz would have hurt ObamaCare by allowing Obama to hide the truth for another year?

Obama is now in a Credibility Death Spiral. We should be paying attention to THAT instead of creating Tea Party versus "GOPe" pissing contests.

In the next few months, bull dyke lesbians will be joining joining Conservatives in raising Hell about being forced to pay for Maternity Coverage they do not need or want. The way to win a general election is to find ways to work with those who agree with a common goal instead having a pissing contest with every faction that is not at least 97% in agreement with you.

In the coming weeks and months, as millions of policies are cancelled, as Americans are horrified by premium sticker-shock and as 26 year old men find that they are now required to pay for Meternity Coverage, the support for Obama will follow a graph like that of Napoleon's Grand Army strength after his invasion of Russia passed from theory to unforgiving and unspinable reality. (The width of the band represents Napoleon's declining troop numbers on the way to Moscow and on the retreat from Moscow.)

Quote: Cedric wrote in post #7

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Quite the opposite....Republican approval ratings fell to 30 year lows thanks to Cruz's stunt.

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Quote: Frank Cannon wrote in post #8

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Quote: Cedric wrote in post #7

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Quite the opposite....Republican approval ratings fell to 30 year lows thanks to Cruz's stunt.

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Bullshit. What you Progressives GOPe types forget to mention is that the GOPe poll numbers were already in the toilet.

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Zitat

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http://www.gallup.com/poll/165317/republ...record-low.aspx

Republican Party Favorability Sinks to Record Low

Falls 10 percentage points from September's 38%

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- With the Republican-controlled House of Representatives engaged in a tense, government-shuttering budgetary standoff against a Democratic president and Senate, the Republican Party is now viewed favorably by 28% of Americans, down from 38% in September.

This is the lowest favorable rating measured for either party since Gallup began asking this question in 1992.

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So, the Percentage versus Time data used to plot the grah demonstrates that the change from the pre-Shutdown figures to the post-Shutdown figures in October, 2013 was a 10% drop from 38% to 28% in one month from September 2013 to October 2014.

In the graph, the straight down portion of the curve was ALL due to the Shutdown

Doing something that INCREASES your standing from 38% to 48% can easily win elections depending on how the Undecideds swing at the last minute.

Doing something that DECREASES your standing from 38% to 28% means that the oppsotion has awarded you its MVP Trophy.

Right now, Obama is in the middle of his own ObamaCare disaster. Unlike Cruz, Obama is stuck with his ObamaCare disaster. When Obama is going straight South, the last thing we need to be doing is to be racing him to the South Finish Line. Arguing that running South is not really running South only helps Obama.

When we start caring more about the individual ego of a politician like Ted Cruz than about cold, hard performance numbers, we have lost the game.

Quote: Cedric wrote in post #7

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Quote: ThirstyMan wrote in post #5

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Quote: Eglman wrote in post #2

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You people really need to understand cloture--Cruz was trying to force a 60 vote margin to close debate thus making harry get 60 votes instead of 51 if the McCain\Mitch group had stay together that would have happened

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Plus, when the towel was thrown in by the McC duo, things were beginning to move Cruz's way.

Imagine if the revelations known today had become known before the McC duo gave up? And what am I referring to? that people could not keep their existing insurance policies as promised, that the web site had allowed only 6 people to register on day one and this "Care" act is a canard with higher deductibles, higher premiums, unwanted coverages like maternity for men, birth control for senior cits.

and then add to that this whole behemoth does nothing to solve the uninsured emergency room problem for the lazy who won't comply. It fails to appeal to the very people who are killing the present system, getting free emergency room treatment. And that $95 [or 1%] fine is nothing!

This is a monstrous Titanic in search of its iceberg.

Now imagine the difference the McC duo's lack of conviction has made. And it's Cruz's actions that are now being called ineffective?

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Things were not moving Cruz's way.

Quite the opposite....Republican approval ratings fell to 30 year lows thanks to Cruz's stunt.

There were four key Senate votes during the shutdown, each one increasingly difficult for Democrat Senators.

None broke ranks.

Not one.

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Quote: Polybius wrote in post #9

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Quote: Frank Cannon wrote in post #8

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Quote: Cedric wrote in post #7

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Quite the opposite....Republican approval ratings fell to 30 year lows thanks to Cruz's stunt.

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Bullshit. What you Progressives GOPe types forget to mention is that the GOPe poll numbers were already in the toilet.

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Instead of name-calling, let's just check the facts. The source is Gallup. The scale of the X-axis on the posted graph, spanning an entire decade, is so compressed that it's data is meaningless in graphic form when you want to evaluate the effect of an event over a one month period. So, you have to look at the original Percentage versus Time data used to plot the graph.

Zitat

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http://www.gallup.com/poll/165317/republ...record-low.aspx

Republican Party Favorability Sinks to Record Low

Falls 10 percentage points from September's 38%

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- With the Republican-controlled House of Representatives engaged in a tense, government-shuttering budgetary standoff against a Democratic president and Senate, the Republican Party is now viewed favorably by 28% of Americans, down from 38% in September.

This is the lowest favorable rating measured for either party since Gallup began asking this question in 1992.

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So, the Percentage versus Time data used to plot the grah demonstrates that the change from the pre-Shutdown figures to the post-Shutdown figures in October, 2013 was a 10% drop from 38% to 28% in one month from September 2013 to October 2014.

In the graph, the straight down portion of the curve was ALL due to the Shutdown
....
Right now, Obama is in the middle of his own ObamaCare disaster. Unlike Cruz, Obama is stuck with his ObamaCare disaster. When Obama is going straight South, the last thing we need to be doing is to be racing him to the South Finish Line. Arguing that running South is not really running South only helps Obama.

When we start caring more about the individual ego of a politician like Ted Cruz than about cold, hard performance numbers, we have lost the game.

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I guess protecting Ted Cruz's ego never was part of my issue. But yes, the plummeting of Obama strapped to his ObamaCare disaster is now occupying sole front and center stage without the foil of Ted Cruz providing the enemy with cover and a distraction. O's penchant for lying and placing blame elsewhere is being given full coverage and now his incompetence can be in full view.

So this could be an opportunity for the Pubs to zip the lip and let 'er rip! They've made their opposition abundantly clear

Quote: Polybius wrote in post #9

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When we start caring more about the individual ego of a politician like Ted Cruz than about cold, hard performance numbers, we have lost the game.

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Quote: ThirstyMan wrote in post #11

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But yes, the plummeting of Obama strapped to his ObamaCare disaster is now occupying sole front and center stage without the foil of Ted Cruz providing the enemy with cover and a distraction.

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Quote: Frank Cannon wrote in post #12

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Quote: Polybius wrote in post #9

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When we start caring more about the individual ego of a politician like Ted Cruz than about cold, hard performance numbers, we have lost the game.

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The game you are playing was lost a decade ago when the GOP ran the board and still govt' spending and size increased. They accomplished nothing meaningful. They couldn't even get decent SCOTUS candidates seated. See John Roberts. People are done with the spin and are walking away. The Rats can spend spend spend and their base gets excited. The GOP, in their constant fetish for so called independents doing it is the kiss of death. Need an example? Mitt Romney. He won the hell out of dopey independents yet he still lost his ass. Know why? Base voters sat on their hands instead of voting for another progressive hack who couldn't even come up with one position on Zerocare.

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