FYI, Jeremy Wallace of the SHT (Sarasota Herald-Tribune) is a political hack who hates conservatives. I encountered him once, staking out a Tea Party rally. That's a fun story.
Posted on 01/08/2014 11:51:08 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz — credited with leading the effort to shut down the federal government last fall — will visit Sarasota next month, adding to the area’s growing national reputation for rolling out the red carpet for Tea Party icons.
The list of recent honorees includes Herman Cain, Sean Hannity and Donald Trump. And besides Cruz, a future guest will be Allen West.
Such figures contrast starkly with Sarasota County’s long-standing reputation as a moderate GOP haven where more socially moderate Republicans could win elections with a fiscally conservative message. That image seems a distant memory with the ultra-conservative figures who have visited, promoting ideas including abolishing the IRS, shutting down the government and opposing any abortion rights.
Sarasota Republican Party chairman Joe Gruters said the more conservative speakers partly reflect some change in the local party.
“Certainly the party has gotten more conservative over the years,” said Gruters, who has also brought U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Haley Barbour here for speaking engagements.
Gruters said he knows some critics who will blast him for giving Cruz the local party’s “Statesman of the Year Award,” a recognition that has virtually become a national drawing card for the Sarasota County GOP. Hannity got the award last year, and in 2012 it went to Trump. Gruters justified his latest move by saying Cruz is a star in the party who will be a big box-office draw.
“He’s a principled leader who fights for what he believes in,” Gruters said, adding that the money made at the event will help fund the local party’s efforts to boost Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s re-election campaign this year.
“I know some people are going to love him coming, and some are going to think we are crazy for bringing him,” Gruters said.
Besides raising money with a big draw, landing Cruz is also about elevating the local party’s stature nationally and helping Gruters appease a growing Tea Party wing of the local party leadership. In other Republican counties, party leaders have been slow to adjust to a growing Tea Party voice.
But Gruters has aggressively courted conservative guests who can help defuse potential unrest that could develop following a more diverse cast.
Defunding, disrupting
No Republican has been more discussed over the last six months than Cruz.
The first-term Texan shot to national prominence in 2013 by leading an effort to defund the government as a way to force Democrats to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act. While Cruz’s effort ultimately failed, it gained him political cachet and put him on the short list of 2016 GOP presidential hopefuls.
But his rise has been disruptive, even for some other Republicans. Many see him as having upstaged Florida’s own rising star, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, who could be battling Cruz for the 2016 presidential nomination.
It was partly Cruz’s shutdown effort that produced a Tea Party backlash against U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, for voting to reopen the federal government and avoiding the nation’s default on its debts. One Tea Party group launched a Web campaign to recruit primary opponents to run against Buchanan and others who voted to reopen the government, declaring they had “caved” while Cruz and other stood strong.
State Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, said she’s not sure all those Gruters attracts reflect the area’s true Republican leanings. But she said it may represent the GOP leadership within the local party.
“We are not a Tea Party county, but it is a Tea Party executive committee,” she said of the leadership panel that runs the local party.
Still, Detert said Gruters is bringing in big names and giving Sarasota Republicans a chance to see national players up close, whether the rank-and-file membership supports a speaker’s positions or not.
University of South Florida political science professor Susan MacManus, who frequently speaks in Sarasota to political and community groups, said the list isn’t a proxy for the local party’s leanings.
“It says less about ideology and is more about promoting the party and showing its clout in the state,” MacManus said.
The Sarasota GOP’s ability to draw big names has certainly caught the attention of state party leaders and increased the local group’s statewide credibility, MacManus said. Gruters said he’s trying to be an equal-opportunity party leader. He said he’s sought to convince New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. John McCain to visit, but also is working to get former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul.
During the 2012 cycle, he aggressively courted Mitt Romney and brought a more moderate Jon Huntsman in for what was likely his biggest event in Florida.
Gruters said his goal is simply to bring every big Republican name through to make Sarasota a mini-Iowa, a place where candidates with presidential ambitions feel obligated to test there mettle. The party’s record underscores the region’s importance in presidential politics, he said. Of the eight biggest Republican presidential contenders in 2012, only Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Texas Libertarian Ron Paul failed to visit Sarasota.
Sarasota Democrats say Cruz and the other speakers Gruters has courted represent a lurch to the extreme right for a party out of step with voters.
President Barack Obama came within just 211 votes of winning Sarasota County in 2008 and Scott’s 6,500-vote margin of victory in Sarasota was the lowest for a GOP gubernatorial candidate in 20 years. Sarasota County Democratic Party chairwoman Rita Ferrandino said she likes Gruters’ picks because they contrast with the prominent names she has invited.
Three days after Cruz speaks to the Sarasota Republicans, civil rights leader Julian Bond speaks to the Sarasota Democrats. Ferrandino also has brought other civil rights notables such as Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, and Eleanor Holmes Norton to speak at the local Democrats’ annual fundraising dinner.
Gruters makes no apologies for giving Sarasota Republicans firsthand access to influential leaders.
“He could be our next president,” Gruters said of Cruz.
“He could be our next president,” Gruters said of Cruz.
____________________________________________________________
That’s the truth. People underestimate the power of a Hispanic surname at the ballot box.
He is a patriot, a constitutional lawyer, devotee and adherent
He successfully argued at the Supreme Court nine times
He is a dutiful senator of the great state of Texas, where he does not hide his opposition to the squishy Cornyn
He is a better senator than anyone we know
And it is he to whom people turn when they are horrified re Obama care as it was Cruz who argued legally and pleaded with the entire branch of tcongress to defund the horrible law, as was their duty
Cruz was the only one besides Lee who unwaveringly took all the hits from all sides to sit down an be quiet, that this should be done politically
And Cruz otherwise does not wrap himself in a flag of another country adding to the watering down of our culture for political gerrymandering purposes
Hispanic surname pshaw
‘He is a better debater than anyone...’
Got autocorrected to: ‘he’s a better senator than anyone...’
But that works, too
The Sarasota County Republican Party has many Tea Party members, and these events honoring solid conservatives sell out in short order, which is why more and more conservatives are eager to visit.
This fact drives hard core collectivists like the cockroach who wrote this article crazy. The demonization of conservatives by this rag is staggering. I hope he shows up at the Lincoln Dinner next month featuring Allen West, and again when Cruz comes to town. I want to remind him, up close and personal, that he's a pathetic journalist who should be paid by the DNC, and that he doesn't have the sand necessary to tell any of these men to their face what he says about them behind the safety of his keyboard.
The writer is a liar. Cruz didn’t lead the effort to shut down the government. He led the effort to defund Obamacare.
One for the gang. Allen West and Ted Cruz are making the Sarasota collectivists heads explode.
FYI, Jeremy Wallace of the SHT (Sarasota Herald-Tribune) is a political hack who hates conservatives. I encountered him once, staking out a Tea Party rally. That's a fun story.
You and I know, and care about. all the things you listed. But, the average American voter doesn’t know all of this stuff about Ted Cruz and if they did, they wouldn’t give a crap. People vote for candidates for the silliest of reasons; and living in Texas, I can tell you, the Cruz surname helped Ted a whole heck of a lot when he ran against the politically entrenched, well-funded Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst for the Senate. This will prove to be true, if you watch how well Linda Vega does in her Primary Challenge to John Cornhole in the March Primary here in Texas.
Cruz came ahead of Bushy Dewhurst when Palin endorsed him
I hope Saran endorses someone this time.
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