What difference does it make?
Posted on 05/01/2013 5:39:32 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Freshman senator Ted Cruz is considering a presidential run, according to his friends and confidants.
Cruz won’t talk about it publicly, and even privately he’s cagey about revealing too much of his thought process or intentions. But his interest is undeniable.
“If you don’t think this is real, then you’re not paying attention,” says a Republican insider. “Cruz already has grassroots on his side, and in this climate, that’s all he may need.”
“There’s not a lot of hesitation there,” adds a Cruz donor who has known the Texan for decades. “He’s fearless.”
For the moment, Cruz’s inner circle is small: mostly aides from his Senate campaign; his father, Rafael; and his wife, Heidi. They didn’t plan on having these presidential conversations so early in his first term. Yet Cruz’s rapid ascent and a flurry of entreaties from conservative leaders have stoked their interest — and Cruz’s. “Ted won’t be opening an Iowa office anytime soon, but he’s listening,” says a longtime Cruz associate. “This is all in the early stages; nothing is official. It’s just building on its own.”
Behind the scenes, there is a palpable fear on the right that the GOP will nominate a moderate Republican in 2016. There’s also growing unease with the field of likely contenders.
Enter Cruz. His supporters argue that he’d be a Barry Goldwater type — a nominee who would rattle the Republican establishment and reconnect the party with its base – but with better electoral results.
Republican power brokers from the early-primary states have noticed. They tell me that the Cruz factor is a frequent topic of discussion among state-based strategists.
“You bet, he’s on my radar,” says Chad Connelly, the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. “Conservatives think he’s a rock star. I hear about him from everybody.”
Cruz’s allies whisper that the 42-year-old attorney, who holds degrees from Harvard Law and Princeton, doesn’t take the groundswell of enthusiasm lightly. Besides talking with conservative grandees, he has called his peers in the legal community and raised the prospect.
“We all see a path, and he does, too,” says a former Cruz colleague. “This isn’t someone who needs to be told the obvious. He didn’t run for the Senate to get cozy, so no one who knows him is surprised that he’s at least looking at it.”
Cruz isn’t worried that his birth certificate will be a problem. Though he was born in Canada, he and his advisers are confident that they could win any legal battle over his eligibility. Cruz’s mother was a U.S. citizen when he was born, and he considers himself to be a natural-born citizen.
As Cruz considers a run, his staff keeps adding new speaking appearances to his calendar. This week, he’ll headline the South Carolina GOP’s Silver Elephant dinner; in late May, he’ll speak to Wall Street heavies at the New York GOP’s annual dinner.
Earlier this year, Cruz gave the keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he was greeted with a raucous reception and praised by Sarah Palin. She touted Cruz as a conservative who “chews barbed wire and spits out rust.”
The debates over gun control, immigration, and President Obama’s appointees have fueled his rise. He has been out front on each issue, brashly battling Democrats and, if need be, his fellow Republicans. “He’s the purest of the young conservative senators — that’s how we see him,” says a consultant who works for a leading conservative group.
That ideological purity and Cruz’s presidential maneuvers make aides close to other Republican contenders nervous. The backroom Republican consensus is that a Cruz insurgency would hardly be a quixotic publicity stunt. He’d outflank almost all of the other candidates on the right, and his debating skills, which once won him national awards, would be formidable. It doesn’t hurt that much of the media already hates him with a passion.
He’s also tighter with Republican donors than most people realize. Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, is a close friend — one of many donors with Cruz ties. Four years ago, Thiel poured more than $250,000 into Cruz’s aborted race for Texas attorney general, and he has recently donated millions to groups supporting Cruz, such as the Club for Growth. Sources close to other top Republican donors tell me that the senator is as good at wooing financiers as he is at wooing the Tea Party.
Cruz is obviously only one of several Senate conservatives gunning for the nomination. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, among others, have been busy traveling to the early states and slowly building up their political staffs. So have GOP governors such as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal.
For now, Cruz is running behind in terms of organization. But sources say that doesn’t deter him in the slightest. “If he thinks this country needs bold leadership, he’s not going to shy away,” the former colleague says. “He is one of the most confident people I know, and he’d run to win.”
— Robert Costa is National Review’s Washington editor.
Yeah so what was the point about the endless debate about Obama’s birth certificate? His mother was born in The US and yet he still had to prove that he was born in Hawaii. This issue won’t go away.
Washington was born in Virgina, McCain was born on a US Military base in Panama. The USSC will have to rule on Cruz. IMHO he is not a natural born citizen. But he is a great Senator.
Imagining having someone to vote for instead of voting for the lesser of evils, it’d be great
approximate inauguration date, but I was winging it.
Good.
The GOP has not a single other person to run, none.
As far as his eligibility, I simply do not care.
If America can no longer produce intelligent conservatives, then I’ll take one from somewhere else.
That’s what it’s come to.
Keep Palin in mind, discussing a Cruz candidacy.
Not sure whether Palin will run her own campaign. I sure hope so.
But if she does not, if Cruz runs, Palin would be a POWERFUL VP candidate.
How did you manage to stagger to that conclusion based solely on the perfectly accurate statement I made? Cruz is the most hated man in the country among the GOP establishment. I'd go so far as to say they hate him more than they hate Obama. And if you don't see that then you're freakin' blind. They will do everything in their power to slap Cruz down any way that they can. And if Cruz thinks that he can bypass them for the nomination, or somehow garner their support, then he's nuts.
I don’t care if he is the reincarnation of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson combined, he’s not a Natural Born Citizen. BOrn in Canada, to an American mother and Cuban natoinal father.
Nope.
If he cares more about being President than the clear intent of the Constitution, then I don’t want him for that reason either.
The Kenyan, the Congress, and the courts have set the precedent that the question of whether one is qualified is purely a political question for the voters.
I disagree, but now a precedent has been set.
It would be hard for the press and the power elite to seriously make that an issue after they mocked everyone who even raised the issue about zero.
How about Ted Cruz and Ted Nugent or Chuck Norris for running mate?
RE: The USSC will have to rule on Cruz.
Only if there is a challenge to the legitimacy of his presidential qualifications.
And if there is such a challenge, OBAMA’s eligibility SHOULD be brought up in that case as well.
There you go. Blow it all up!
Oh my gosh- Ted Cruz on the SCOTUS would be a dream come true.
The weeping and gnashing of teeth from the left would nearly top that of the Clarence Thomas nomination.
What difference does it make?
Precedent is NOT Law. It takes a "Amendment" to change the Constitution. Same with the 2nd Amendment, regardless of what the ComDems Say.
Look, if you want to vote for him....fine. I won’t. That’s my choice.
That’s the problem here. Someone gets elected and they do one or two things we agree with and all of a sudden they should be president. When Hillary and her mob or whoever they are going to have run rip into republicans and bang the “republicans are against the constitution” drums I do not want to hear it.
I said he was a fine senator, and he is. I’m going to leave it at that until I know more about him.
Sarah is not going to run. The MSM has ruined her brand to all except us grass roots Tea Party folks. Also the GOPe fears her and would throw everything its’ got at her. At the moment I like Paul and Cruz. Cruz has citizenship issues that need to be dealt with and he has only been on the national scene for a few months. Entirely to early for a Republican to even be thinking about a presidential run.
BTTT
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.