The #unexpectedly Chronicles Boehner picks Trump (& Hillary, Obama & Bernie) over Cruz

Six months ago I bluntly told you that in a Ted Cruz Don­ald Trump race, Trump was the estab­lish­ment pick:

If Ted Cruz is will­ing to take on prac­ti­cally his entire cau­cus as the junior sen­a­tor against a pow­er­ful Sen­ate leader how much more will­ing will he be will­ing to do so with the bully pul­pit & the power that comes with it in his hands? The Supreme Court Fights alone will be epic and I sus­pect a man as famil­iar with the court as he will man­aged to find actual con­ser­v­a­tives to both nom­i­nate and fight for.

Now con­trast that worry with what the Estab­lish­ment will had to deal with in a Trump admin­is­tra­tion. Pic­ture a group of peo­ple appointed by a prag­matic deal maker and pic­ture the estab­lish­ment and even the left hav­ing to deal with Trump and his appointees, many of whom will be self-​made and have absolutely no loy­alty to the con­ser­v­a­tive elec­torate that said estab­lish­ment loathes so much.

Then finally con­sider Trump him­self, he prides him­self as being per­son who is a great nego­tia­tor and deal­maker. The prob­lem with a deal­maker is the key ques­tion: “What do you give up to make the deal?”

If you are an Estab­lish­ment repub­li­can or even a demo­c­rat that ques­tion will con­sole you, but as a social con­ser­v­a­tive it does not.

So for me it’s no sur­prise that John Boehner is now on the Trump train:

The for­mer House speaker also described the two other Repub­li­can can­di­dates as friends. He recalled play­ing golf with Repub­li­can fron­trun­ner Don­ald Trump for years, and said they were “tex­ting bud­dies.” Despite Trump being short of the 1,237 del­e­gates required to win the nom­i­na­tion, Boehner accepted that The Don­ald is the pre­sump­tive Repub­li­can nominee.

While he did not praise Trump’s poli­cies, the for­mer speaker said he would vote for The Don­ald in a gen­eral elec­tion. He said he would not, how­ever, vote for Cruz.

What? This isn’t pos­si­ble, we’ve just been told for months by the Trump cam­paign that Ted Cruz is the insider and Don­ald Trump was the out­siders and that Ted Cruz main­tain­ing the oppo­site was lying.

Next thing you’ll be telling me that Ted Cruz is telling the Truth about Don­ald Trump being liberal:

Boehner may have attacked Obama’s sharpest critic, but he had pos­i­tive words for the pres­i­dent him­self. The Stan­ford Daily reported that the for­mer speaker “reflected pos­i­tively on his rela­tion­ship with Obama. Although he acknowl­edged that the two dis­agree, Boehner said the two get along well.” While it is good to make friends across the aisle, the sharp crit­i­cism against a fel­low Repub­li­can — one of the most insis­tent and ortho­dox con­ser­v­a­tives in recent mem­ory — con­trasted with praise for the puta­tive head of the Demo­c­ra­tic Party strikes con­ser­v­a­tives the wrong way.

The for­mer House speaker also praised Hillary Clin­ton, after briefly mock­ing her sex­ist cam­paign. “Oh, I’m a woman, vote for me,” he said, but the crowd reacted neg­a­tively. Later, he admit­ted that he has known Clin­ton for 25 years and finds her to be very accom­plished and smart.

Boehner also added that he thinks Bernie Sanders is a nice guy and the most hon­est politi­cian in the race, even though he dis­agrees with the Ver­mont senator’s posi­tions on nearly all of the issues.

So to sum up, John Boehner, fan of Clin­ton, fan of Sanders, fan of Obama, fan of Trump, hates Ted Cruz.

What does that tell you? I know what that tells Ted Cruz:

“If you’re won­der­ing who has actu­ally stood up to Wash­ing­ton,” Cruz said, “John Boehner has made it crys­tal clear” that Don­ald Trump is not that candidate

As Allah­pun­dit put it, this would have been more use­ful six months ago which is likely why Boehner kept his mouth shut till now.

Oh Boehner and friends aren’t stop­ping at hit­ting Ted Cruz:

The same play­ers who detest Ted Cruz have now recruited a straw man RINO to run against Rep. Jim Briden­s­tine (R-​OK), one of the most intre­pid con­ser­v­a­tives in the House of Representatives.

and who are they fund­ing to oppose him?

Well, who is Tom Atkin­son? He is the quin­tes­sen­tial wealthy trans-​ideological Repub­li­can. He donated to a lib­eral Demo­c­rat, Kathy Tay­lor, who ran against the Repub­li­can mayor of Tulsa. That Repub­li­can mayor, Dewey Bartlett, is Tom Atkinson’s own brother-​in-​law! Atkin­son has tapped Shane Saun­ders, a for­mer aid to John Sul­li­van, the RINO Briden­s­tine defeated in 2012. Saun­ders is known to be close with Boehner as well.

On Atkinson’s cam­paign web­site and in his ads, he sells him­self as a con­ser­v­a­tive and not a politi­cian. But how could a con­ser­v­a­tive donate to a promi­nent Demo­c­rat who funded Emily’s List and held fundrais­ers for Joe Biden?

So for all the repub­li­cans who were out­raged over John Boehner who have within a few months of cheer­ing his depar­ture bought into the false attacks on Ted Cruz by the Trump cam­paign let Ted answer it directly:

John Boehner, in his remarks, described Don­ald Trump as his tex­ting and golf­ing buddy. So if you want some­one that’s a tex­ting and golf­ing buddy, if you’re happy about John Boehner, Speaker of the House, and if you want a pres­i­dent like John Boehner, Don­ald Trump’s your man.

A lot of peo­ple have been played this cycle and in the inter­net age there is no excuse for it.

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