IOW, Cruz doesn't have large crowds because he's not a pop-culture icon. The truth is, Cruz is running the Huckabee/Santorum/Michelle Bachman campaign. Without Trump in the race, his best bet would be Iowa, then he would have lost to Jeb or Rubio somewhere along the way to Florida, wherein Cruz would be kookified by quoting his daddy talk about the "End Times Transfer of Wealth to the righteous" or showing his weaknesses on TPP and immigration, which render his opposition to Rubio et al entirely pointless.
Trump's campaign rules because it has all the energy in the race, bringing in new voters left and right. Once the actual votes begin, Trump's already sizable lead will probably come out far far larger than even the best polls suggest.
Cruz cannot create that buzz. Too artificial, too vulnerable.
“The truth is, Cruz is running the Huckabee/Santorum/Michelle Bachman campaign. Without Trump in the race, his best bet would be Iowa, then he would have lost to Jeb or Rubio somewhere along the way to Florida...”
I don’t know who this Greetings_Puny_Humans is working for, but every thread that mentions Cruz, he/she faithfully shows up to spew out dribble like this. For some reason trying to perpetuate the notion that Cruz has all his eggs in the Iowa basket, when the reality is his campaign is wide and deep, with tons of cash (both hard money and Super Pacs) and a strong ground game across multiple states. That is quite a bit different from the Huckabee/Santorum/Bachmann playbooks of past cycles. It is puzzling why the need to perpetuate a demonstrably false narrative and show up on virtually every thread to regurgitate it, could be that whoever he/she is working for is getting a tad concerned about Cruz’s recent rise in the polls.
Answer me this: Did any of those three you mentioned
# 1. Have more cash on hand than anyone else?
# 2. Have a huge superPAC money?
# 3. Have the best ground game and organization in all the early primary states?
If the answer to all three questions is “no”(and it is), then don't compare Ted Cruz to them, because Ted Cruz has all three.