Cruz Aide Leading New Political Action Committee

Texas Tribune ^ | April 16, 2015 | Abby Livingston

[SoConPubbie]

WASHINGTON — The campaign manager for Ted Cruz’s successful 2012 U.S. Senate bid won’t be working directly for the senator’s 2016 presidential campaign, but his new job means that he will still have an active role in supporting his former boss.

John Drogin, who joined Cruz's Senate office as state director early in the junior senator's first term, will now be the executive director of Make DC Listen, a new political action committee that endorsed Cruz's presidential bid on its first day in operation Thursday. Drogin left his Senate office post on Wednesday.  

“Our goal is to raise grassroots contributions for [Cruz’s] campaign so he has the resources to get his message out and win," Drogin said in a statement.

The PAC, which aims to back federal candidates who are cut from the same cloth as Cruz, is not a super PAC. Therefore, donations will be subject to federal limits.

Drogin, a former spokesman for U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, was one of the earliest staffers to sign on with Cruz's 2012 campaign, when Cruz was mostly an afterthought in a multi-candidate race. 

A news release on Thursday morning described Make DC Listen as “a multi-candidate PAC [that] will help conservative candidates raise these funds from like-minded patriots across the country.”

“This PAC will empower the grassroots to turn our country around by donating directly to candidates who will fight for less government and more freedom,” Drogin added.

“Make DC Listen will start by supporting Ted Cruz for President because he's a proven conservative, has strong grassroots support, and will stand up to the Washington establishment,” said Drogin. “Nobody will do more to make DC listen than Ted Cruz.”

A handful of super PACs are supporting Cruz, and they say they raised a combined $31 million earlier this month. 

[SoConPubbie]

	"If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures." - Alexander Hamilton "We don't intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended. We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the Party over to the so-called moderates wouldn’t make any sense at all." -- President Ronald Reagan "A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice." - Thomas Paine 1792 "It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." - Samuel Adams "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams

[SoConPubbie]

Ted Cruz Ping!

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CRUZ or LOSE!

CRUZ or LOSE!

[Grams A]

donating directly to candidates who will fight for less government and more freedom,...”

Wonder how this will be different from Heritage Foundation.

[wolfman23601]

I am pleasantly surprised and impressed with how organized Cruz is. I knew he could debate and had the conservative credentials and have been behind him from the beginning, but he is surprising me.

[Gaffer]

I think there are new rules WRT PACs, money, etc. a candidate or party can have opening up a new realm of funding opportunities that used to be reserved for conniving Democrats, UNIONs, foreign interests and illegality sanctioned by Democrat Department of Justice.

The Democrats are very worried about this and how quick-studied some of these upstart candidates are now.

[TWhiteBear]

Unlike the secretive Mz Hillary Clinton, Senator Cruz has show a record of competence and strong organizational skills.
TWB

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

I am pleasantly surprised and impressed with how organized Cruz is.

* * *

I think the man has a mind like a steel trap wrapped in a nice warm blankie. ;o) I think he’s been watching and analyzing political campaigns since he was in college, always thinking how he would improve upon things. Go Ted!