My friend Bruce posted a dazzling video, which I have included below. It shows Ted Cruz at the Iowa caucuses having a tense discussion with an Iowa farmer who is opposed to Cruz’s policy of repealing federal subsidies for ethanol, which is made from Iowa corn.

Notice how Cruz respects the man, looks him in the eye, and does not appear anxious to move on. He believes that he is right, and he respects the other man as a rational agent. He thinks that if he explains his view, then the other man will agree with him on the merits of his argument. The farmer’s opposition is not a marketing problem to Ted Cruz. It’s an evidence problem to Ted Cruz. Cruz doesn’t think that there is any difference in the dignity or worth of himself and this man. He approaches him like an equal, and he believes that he owes this man an answer. He wants this man’s vote, and he is not willing to bribe him with taxpayer money in order to get it. He is lifting the man upward – asking him “what kind of country do you want this to be?” instead of telling him what taxpayer money Cruz will give him for his vote. It is the complete opposite of what Trump, Clinton and Sanders do with voters.

The Resurgent has a story on it about what to notice in the video:

People covering Ted Cruz say he doesn’t leave any event until the last question has been answered. In this video, Cruz is confronted by an angry farmer questioning his stand against Ethanol subsidies.

Cruz’s deep knowledge of the topic, his ability to calm the man down and get him to really listen, combined with his confidence in his own solutions win the man over.

Notice the constant eye contact. This is why Cruz can govern. On the stump, Washington fears him. On the floor of the Senate, the establishment hates him. But one-on-one, more often than not, Cruz can convince people he’s right.

Here is the clip from the most recent debate where Cruz explained his policy to the people of Iowa:

This is not your typical politician. This is something different.

I have a number of friends who are supporters of Marco Rubio, the establishment GOP candidate.

Marco Rubio regularly teams up with Democrats:

• to pass amnesty – a path to citizenship for 20 million illegal immigrants – so they can vote to expand government
• to support the disastrous Obama/Clinton Libya intervention which created an Islamic State caliphate in Libya
• to strip accused students of due process rights in university trials
• to  push cap and trade (a carbon tax that drives up electricity prices)
• to skip votes on de-funding Planned Parenthood in order to go to campaign fundraising events
• to take money from a billionaire gay-marriage activist who donates to the Human Rights Campaign group – a group which wants government to persecute Christians who dissent from celebrating gay marriage

What my Rubio-supporting friends are telling me is that all these past actions are no big deal. They say that America has become a less conservative country, so we need to run a less conservative establishment candidate like Marco Rubio in order to win. I understand and agree that America is a less conservative country. We’ve drifted away from our roots and lost the vision of the Founders, which made us so great. But I don’t think that less conservative policies – be they social, fiscal or foreign policy policies – produce better results than more conservative policies.

Socialism doesn’t work

Take a look at this article about Venezuela, which appeared in the radically leftist Washington Post.

It says:

The only question now is whether Venezuela’s government or economy will completely collapse first.

The key word there is “completely.” Both are well into their death throes. Indeed, Venezuela’s ruling party just lost congressional elections that gave the opposition a veto-proof majority, and it’s hard to see that getting any better for them any time soon — or ever. Incumbents, after all, don’t tend to do too well when, according to the International Monetary Fund, their economy shrinks 10 percent one year, an additional 6 percent the next, and inflation explodes to 720 percent. It’s no wonder, then, that markets expect Venezuela to default on its debt in the very near future. The country is basically bankrupt.

That’s not an easy thing to do when you have the largest oil reserves in the world, but Venezuela has managed it. How?

[…]The first step was when Hugo Chávez’s socialist government started spending more money on the poor, with everything from two-cent gasoline to free housing.

[…]Chávez turned the state-owned oil company from being professionally run to being barely run. People who knew what they were doing were replaced with people who were loyal to the regime, and profits came out but new investment didn’t go in.

Do you know who supports spending tons of taxpayer money on public works projects and welfare, in order to buy votes? Democrats. Do you know who supports nationalizing private industry, especially health care and energy? Democrats. These are Democrat Party policies and they failed. They failed spectacularly. This failure is something that any ordinary American can understand, if anyone bothered to explain the cause and effect of economic policies to them.

And that’s exactly what Ted Cruz is doing in that video, with that ordinary voter. And to the great credit of Iowa voters, they voted for Ted Cruz even when he didn’t promise to give them taxpayer-funded goodies. That, my friends, is character. Iowa has character. They rose to his challenge, because they have Iowa values. Not New York Values.

Here is the real Donald Trump and his New York values, by the way:

Donald Trump promised more subsidies for ethanol to the people of Iowa, in order to get them to overlook his New York values. And the people of Iowa gave Ted Cruz the win.

So, the bottom line is this. I don’t believe that the superiority of conservative policies is difficult to demonstrate to ordinary people. I think that the average, run-of-the-mill American adult in the political center can be persuaded, so long as they give us time, and so long as we have the right man or woman to do the persuading. Give Cruz a chance to persuade them. We don’t have to take the American people as they are. We can try to shift them to the right, by listening to their concerns, and then persuading them with evidence.