THREE STRIKES AND I’M OUT

I’ve never used TTP as a confessional, but there’s always a first time. I’m in a state of existential crisis.

Maybe it’s sparked by what happens tonight in Charleston, South Carolina. It could be a pivot point of history – for the world, for America, and my own life.

Strike One for me was my countrymen in the millions being literally deranged enough to elect a man who wanted God to damn America.

When in 2008 Zero was allowed by the media and the public to talk his way out of the preacher who married him, whose church he had attended for 20 years, praying for God to damn the country he wanted to be president of, I should have known I was a stranger in my own land.

Any sane decent person whether Republican or Democrat should have ceased having the slightest regard for him or his candidacy at that moment.

He was worshipped instead. Right up to the November election, I could not make myself believe that Americans would do something so masochistic, so delusional, so demented, so flat-out mentally retarded as to place their freedom, their pocketbooks, their personal and national security in the hands of this evil man. Yet they did.

I remember being in a daze for the longest time. When I went to a supermarket or a mall, I would look at people differently, like they were dangerously insane lunatics, or at the least no longer Americans but from some foreign Third World country where people worship their dictator.

Surely, I thought, this must be a temporary insanity. Normal people have the capacity to go around the bend, then come to their senses, happens all the time. As Zero proved himself to be just as evil as I knew he was, I comforted myself in the conviction that the Curse of Zero would be over in 2012. It was impossible, inconceivable, unimaginable, that Americans would re­-elect him.

Yet they did. It doesn’t matter that the Dems rigged the vote. What matters is that the election was close enough for them to cheat and rig it.

That was Strike Two.

Still, it never occurred to me that there would ever be a Strike Three. Because conservatives. That is, those responsible for the first two strikes were libtards and moochers, the guilt-ridden embarrassed by America’s prosperity and fearful of envious voodoo, the great mass of brainwashed sheeple willing to sell out their Constitutional freedoms and rights for Food Stamps.

Surely, I thought, conservatives – patriotic freedom-loving rational conservatives – formed an electoral majority that would rid us of the Curse of Zero in 2016 should they have one of their own as the Pub nominee in 2016, instead of a disappointing wimp like Romney or a “Rino Johnny” McCain.

And sure enough, right on cue direct from Central Casting, there he is, the candidate of any rational conservative’s dreams – OMG smart, principled to the core on any fundamental conservative issue, guts galore (enough to call the Rino Senate Majority Leader a “liar” to his face on the floor of the Senate), determined to dismantle unconstitutional federal power via the 10^th Amendment.

Yet instead of going all-up/all-in for a Constitutional Conservative of honesty, decency, and integrity, hordes of conservatives go ga-ga over his antithesis.

It’s something I never thought would happen – that many conservatives could go just as Daffy Duck as Democrats. Then again, I never thought Zero would win in 2008 and 2012.

So here I am, facing Strike Three. Which is – if Donald Trump is the GOP nominee, I’m out. I won’t support him, I won’t vote for him, and I’ll have to give up To The Point. I’m too old to tolerate my country going wacko three times in a row. I’ll stick to my main love and business, running expeditions, and advising saner political leaders like those in Poland.

Which brings me to tonight.

No one will be paying attention to those folks whose candidacies are effectively over – Jeb, Kasich, Christie, and Carson. The spotlight may shine briefly on Rubio. It might on Jeb too, given his latest ad. While I’m no fan of his candidacy, this is a bullseye:

But with Iowa 18 days away, the only debate that matters tonight will be between Cruz and Trump.

They are neck and neck in the polls. If Cruz loses Iowa, it’s gone. He will then lose New Hampshire and it’s very hard to see how he could overcome Trumpmania at that point.

Thus the debate a few hours from now is the pivot point, a true fork in history’s road. I feel that it is mortally critical for America’s future that this is Cruz’s moment to take Trump down, hit him right between the eyes and put him on the canvas.

I call it The Cruz Gauntlet. He needs to explicitly challenge Trump mano-a-mano. If I were Cruz, here’s what I would say looking right at him tonight with millions watching:

Donald, you’re a genius entertainer, showman, and publicity-gaining soundbite specialist. You are a master of self-promotion, the Kim Kardashian of American politics. You particularly specialize in being rude and insulting to anyone who criticizes you because you have paper-thin skin. You can dish it out but you can’t take it.

 So here’s my challenge to you. Let’s you and I have a mano-a-mano debate just between ourselves with no one else and no moderator. Let’s go toe to toe strictly on solutions and substance – no insults, no empty soundbites, but outlining and explaining in substantive detail how the policies we each advocate can solve America’s problems; create more jobs, freedom, and opportunity; and enable her to be more secure from her enemies.

 All substance, no alpha male strutting and braggadocio. Do you have the guts for that, Donald? Yes or no? Yes meaning we debate next week, well before Iowa on the 1^st.

Cruz has to throw down the gauntlet, slingshot past Trump. Tonight’s debate is the moment. The media frenzy would be monumental. It’s a lose-lose for Trump. He can’t chicken out – if he does, Cruz should call him a coward, use that very word, coward, call him yellow, all show and no go – and if he agrees, Cruz will destroy him on substance and policy.

If I were Cruz, I would also say this looking directly into the camera:

I want to say this to Donald’s supporters. You support him because you’re exploding with anger and disgust at the Republican Establishment for wimping out at every opportunity in spending, protecting our borders, and all of Mr. Obama’s lawlessness. I don’t blame you one bit for your anger, you have every right to it.

 But please consider that Donald is a crony capitalist who’s used his wealth to buy political favors, who’s donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrats like Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton. He used eminent domain to try and steal a widow’s home for a limousine parking lot for his casino. For decades he’s been pro-abortion, now he pretends he’s pro-life. He’s a life-long Democrat now pretending to be a conservative.

 Ask yourselves – why then is the Republican Establishment starting to support Donald instead of me? Why do you think that Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus is suddenly declaring Donald to be a “varsity” candidate while Senate leader Mitch McConnell has the audacity to demur on my clear natural-born American citizenship? It’s because they know in the end they can make a deal with him and not with me.

 The Republican elite hates and fears me much more than Mr. Trump. Deep down, they know Mr. Trump is a pay-to-play guy just like them. I’m not. I’ll put an end to their Washington gravy train and they know it. So if you want an end to the corrupt Washington Cartel, the RepubliCrat Gravy Train, I’m you’re guy. Donald isn’t.

TC has to go for Trump’s jugular. No hesitation. No holding back. He’s got to demolish Trump on national television, then hammer him into the ground, never let him off the ropes until Feb 1^st. It’s now or never. He’s got to win Iowa or it’s over.

And I’m afraid it may be over for me, three strikes and I’m out. Sorry for the confession. You can see how nervous I’ll be this evening. Sure hope I’ll feel better tomorrow.