...."Nowhere, in either his prepared stump speech to New Hampshire voters or his responses to their questions, do you hear a single concession to New England-style moderate Republicanism-to the extent that it still exists.
Insofar as winning the nomination goes, this is both necessary and strategic. You can't really get away with regional pandering anymore in this national media environment. Were Cruz, or any other candidate, to whisper one thing in the ears of New Hampshire voters and another to South Carolina voters, there would be an approximately 10-second gap between his delivery and a comprehensive media, activist, and operative assault on his chief selling point: airtight conservative trustworthiness.
Fortunately, not bothering to develop a tailored message for Northern moderates is something that the unique size and makeup of this primary field allows him to get away with. Nearly all New Hampshire polling in recent weeks has shown the same static picture: Trump is out front with roughly 30 percent of the vote, followed by a five-way tie for second between Sen. Marco Rubio, Gov. John Kasich, Gov. Chris Christie, Cruz, and Jeb Bush. If you only listened to Cruz, you would not know that Kasich, Christie, and Bush are even running for president, so rarely does he ever mention their names. The only use he has for them in New Hampshire-and it’s an important one-is to split the moderate vote among themselves, thereby allowing Cruz to land a first- or second-place finish."....
...Cruz's pitch to New Hampshire conservatives is straightforward and, from what I'm seeing, effective. I spoke with several voters at Cruz's bus tour stops across the state on Sunday and Monday who came in undecided and left as Cruz supporters. William Davis of Laconia had been considering an array of candidates from Cruz to Bush ("I had a friend of mine in South Carolina who was mad at me for seeing him") to Carly Fiorina ("I'll go with the conspiracy theory: I literally think there's a media witch hunt to keep her out of the front-runners"). After hearing Cruz's presentation at the Tilt'n Diner in Tilton on Monday, Davies was persuaded. "He articulated his positions extremely well, he didn't shy away from any of the key issues, and you know what? He didn't shy away from his faith," Davies said. "And the reality is it's going to take that kind of substance to get things changed in this nation."............
Ted Cruz is an honorable man and the kind of man who would have fit in with our founding fathers. And he is the man I hope the people of this country will come out to support in the Iowa Caucuses and every other primary to come.