Posted on 03/22/2015 9:07:26 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The Texan spent the last months before his presidential campaign showing off his knack for articulating the most conservative position on numerous issues.
Sen. Ted Cruz will reportedly launch his 2016 presidential campaign during a speech Monday, the Houston Chronicle wrote Saturday night. The Texas Republican has been laying the groundwork for a run for months—visiting early primary states, meeting with Republican activists, and hiring political strategists to manage his campaign—and has chosen the evangelical Liberty University in Virginia as the site of his official announcement.
Though Cruz is not considered a favorite to win the GOP nomination, he will undoubtedly play a huge role in the 2016 campaign by catering to conservative voters, who tend to dominate primaries, with his knack for articulating the most conservative position on key issues.
Just in the past couple of months, the fiery Cruz has shown off that knack in visits to Iowa and New Hampshire, on cable news, and on the Senate floor. Cruz made his name in the Senate as one of the GOP's staunchest critics of the Affordable Care Act—even driving a strategy that led to 2013's government shutdown—but Cruz is deeply conservative on any number of issues and he's not afraid to say so. That could have a big impact on the rest of the field: In the 2012 presidential race, conservative candidates similar to Cruz often pulled the GOP primary field along with them.
How Cruz affects the 2016 primary will come down to how the other candidates react to him—whether by moving to the right themselves on some issues or by using Cruz as a contrast to try to distinguish themselves as more moderate. Either way, Cruz has spent his last months before officially becoming a presidential candidate highlighting his ability to get on the most conservative side of an issue.
In Iowa, Cruz told conservative Christians he is the Republican field's leading opponent of gay marriage.
As the country has started approving of same-sex marriage and many Republican officials have deemphasized the party's long-time focus on defining marriage as "one man, one woman," Cruz has remained a sharp opponent. While visiting Iowa two weeks ago, Cruz told a crowd of evangelicals that the issue "distinguishes him from other potential candidates," per the Des Moines Register, and that he still sees opposing same-sex marriage as a front-burner issue. So do many evangelicals in the state, who made up over half of GOP caucus-goers in 2012.
Cruz took that fight to the Senate floor in February, promising to introduce a constitutional amendment that would leave marriage up to the states while also signing onto a bill with the same goal.
Cruz introduced Senate resolutions on social issues in Washington, D.C.
Congress has the power to undo laws passed by the District of Columbia's local government, but as The Washington Post notes, such an effort would need President Obama's support to succeed. So while Cruz's recent resolutions to undo D.C. policies—one which keeps employers from firing workers who use birth control and another which exempts "religiously affiliated educational institutions from the city's gay nondiscrimination law," per the Post—are unlikely to succeed, they did once again underline his commitment to being a staunch social conservative after some Republicans have urged the party to focus more on economic issues.
Cruz told Fox News viewers that President Obama was an apologist for Islamic radicals.
Cruz's presidential primary opponents may struggle to match his strident rhetoric on a host of issues. Foreign policy is a big one, as Cruz demonstrated in a February appearance on Fox News. The Texan said Obama's statements and policies were hurting the global fight against ISIS, particularly because he was being "an apologist for radical Islamic terrorists, to analogize it to the Crusades from 700 years ago," Cruz said.
In a recent appearance on ABC News, Cruz said he'd be willing to send ground forces to fight ISIS in the Middle East.
Cruz told Iowa agriculture interests that he opposes the renewable fuel standard.
On another trip to Iowa, Cruz stuck to his guns and didn't pander on a key issue for business interests there: federal mandates for the production of biofuels, including corn ethanol. Iowa corn producers make a lot of money because the demand for their product driven by the "renewable fuel standard," but many conservatives see the policy as an unnecessary mandate. And Cruz told attendees at the Iowa Ag Summit that the federal government shouldn't dictate that production. Cruz said energy production should be "driven by the market," the Des Moines Register wrote.
In New Hampshire, Cruz advocated for unlimited money in politics, likening it to free speech.
Politicians in both parties tend to rag on the influence of big donors—usually the ones that fund their opponents. But on a trip to New Hampshire last week, Cruz argued that campaign finance rules limit free speech and "muzzle citizens," the Associated Press reported.
Don't you love the media?
From what I’ve heard, he’s managing to garner support from people who don’t typically vote Republican. That, to me, is a major step in the right direction. The media can shove off.
And I’m sick of the rhetoric that he was responsible for shutting down the government. It sure wouldn’t hurt to shut most of it down for months each year.
He can win, though he’s unlikely to win.
Yeah right, that's how we got Weasel Boy as the nominee.
True that. It always kills me when there's a snowstorm and they say that non-essential government employees should stay home. Why do we have non-essential employees?
There is a concerted effort to ignore Cruz and hope he goes away. Maybe it will work, but I think Ted can debate the best of the field. It will be hard to dismiss him.
There. FIXED IT. /sarc
pulled right primaryare the real deal, or just full of it… I think that most are the latter, but I fear that the general populous will be taken in again by the
republican brandlike they were in Nov.
Secondly there's the primaries and RNC to consider: remember the retroactive rule-changes to deprive Ron Paul supporters [in favor of Romney] and the RNC bus-shenanigans that prevented a delegation's vote on matters? — This is to say: should we trust the RNC, the Republican-Party-as-an-Organization?
These are all considerations independent of who wins the primaries.
No center left Republican will win a Presidential election this next time.
No spineless Republican will win the next election.
You better show up with a pair or you had better just stay home.....
“Though Cruz is not considered a favorite to win the GOP nomination...”
I caught that too...done reading the article. Of course he’s not leading in the polls, he hasn’t been a candidate, dammit.
Check back in a month.
“He can win, though he’s unlikely to win.”
Who is likely to win?
Forget polls. Let’s take a realistic view of the field.
Bush - The rats poisoned the well with the Bush name. No Republican to the right of Obama will vote for him. Unintended consequences for the left. They want Bush, they ain’t getting Bush.
Christie - Bridgegate. Toast
Romney - 47% - Toast
Rubio - Amnesty Amnesty Amnesty - He will be there, but he is toast.
Graham - hahahahahahaha.. toast.
Walker - Aside from Cruz, best of the bunch. Will be interesting to see how he and Cruz debate.
Cruz - Aside from Walker, best of the bunch. Will be interesting to see how he and Walker debate.
Paul - Will see how many Cruz/Walker voters he can pull away to give the Democrats the White House. Aside from that, toast.
Carson - I’ll take who is Colin Powell and Condi Rice for 100 Alex. Question, who is acting as a Conservative but the minute Sharpton comes knocking, will buy into to his race before political leanings first?
Fiorina - Can’t run a company, you can’t run a country. Toast.
Don’t know who else is in there, but since I don’t know who they are off the top of my head, toast.
Best bet - Cruz/Walker, Walker/Cruz
Dark Horses - Mike Pence, John Kacich. GOPe in Conservative clothing.. Toast.
That’s a trick question on FR in a Ted Cruz thread.
“That’s a trick question on FR in a Ted Cruz thread.”
haha... no. Not a trick question. Ted speaks without a TelePrompter. Obama can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.
It’s like horse race handicapping. First you look for reasons why a horse probably won’t win. Out classed? Out Paced? Not enough stamina? Doesn’t do well on the Turf? I’m not assigning any of those probabilities to Cruz, just using them as an example.
Then, you have 3 categories, Those that probably can’t win, those that can win but probably won’t and those that have a good shot at winning.
Now, ask yourself. If I wanted to bet $1000 on Ted Cruz to win the Election - what odds do I wan’t? 6-1? 2-1? 5-4? 11-9? 15-1?
Me, I would want 30-1. Then I could in good conscious make that bet.
Likewise I would take my $2 to your $3 that Hillary won’t run. Hillary has health issues and I believe they’ll become apparent in her primaries if she actually has to run and debate somebody.
“Likewise I would take my $2 to your $3 that Hillary won’t run. Hillary has health issues and I believe they’ll become apparent in her primaries if she actually has to run and debate somebody.”
Not only won’t I take that bet, I will go so far as saying she won’t run because she wants to spend more time with her grandchild and helping Chelsea run the Clinton Foundation.
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