“Oh many times. I’ve been told no by him. My whole life, really has been a no," the Republican presidential candidate said during a town hall event in Atkinson, New Hampshire, on NBC's "Today."

“It has not been easy for me. It has not been easy for me. I started off in Brooklyn. My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars," Trump remarked. "I came into Manhattan, and I had to pay him back, and I had to pay him back with interest. But I came into Manhattan and I started buying properties, and I did great."

3) Reagan was an exceptional communicator — an ideal candidate to take a brand of right-wing politics that had been fairly fringe and make it mainstream. He honed his skills as the host of TV’s GE Theater, where he advocated for kitchen appliances and economic liberty before a general audience. He was the governor of California, where he faced a robust opposition party. Both his predecessor and successor were Democrats, and he won re-election after a heated campaign in which he garnered only 52 percent of the vote. He had been tested and earned his stripes.

Cruz has only been elected once, in a state where general elections are essentially irrelevant. Certainly he scored a great victory in the Republican primary in 2012, when he defeated David Dewhurst. But he beat Dewhurst the way all Texas Republicans do — by appealing only to the right. His political skills are insular in nature. He’s not an especially charismatic guy outside of tea party meetings.

He has demonstrated an exceptional ability to appeal to movement conservatives. But if he were to win the nomination, the 2016 general election would be the first time Cruz faced the sustained task of winning over people who are not already in agreement with him in his entire political career. And he has shown no great skill at this so far, whether with firefighters or Middle East Christians or Houston businessmen.

That’s the tricky thing about Texas, if you’re a statewide elected official. It’s easy to be elected here, and the state gives you a great big platform in office. But the experience that being elected in Texas provides you is not easily translatable, in part because there’s no strong Democratic party to help train you. That’s one of the things that tripped Rick Perry up. It’s like being a boxer who only fights cardboard cutouts.

pacino wrote:i fail to see why he is going to prison for this (lying to an investigator for paying money to a guy) instead of the actual sexual abuse.

Werthless wrote:Maybe he used the loan to buy bootstraps.

Soren wrote:Cruz comes off like a divisive, slimy, opportunistic scumbag.