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Posted on 10/24/2015 12:56:33 PM PDT by Isara
WASHINGTON - If Ted Cruz's presidential campaign has a target audience, Dick and Betty Odgaard are pretty close to the bull's-eye.
They were sued for refusing to host a same-sex wedding at their gallery in Grimes, Iowa, turning them into martyrs for evangelical Christians at the core of the Texas Republican's base, particularly in the South and Midwest.
Since then, the Odgaards have become "religious liberty ambassadors" on Cruz's Iowa leadership team, helping deepen his hold on the social conservatives he needs to climb to the upper tier of a crowded Republican field - albeit one still dominated by real estate mogul Donald Trump.
"We're on a mission," said Betty Odgaard during a trip to Houston this week that included a visit with Cruz's family.
Courting evangelical voters since his announcement speech at Liberty University, Cruz, once seen as a long-shot Tea Party insurgent, has been climbing in the polls for the past month. He also started October with $13.5 million, the biggest campaign war chest in the GOP field.
To have a realistic shot, Cruz still needs Trump to fade, along with retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, the other leading outsider in the race. Should that moment come - the Cruz game plan depends on it - his strategists believe his relentless focus on the party's hard-right base will make him the default conservative leader in the race.
That would be vindication for a contrarian strategy that disdains the temperate conservatism of recent Republican presidential candidates like Mitt Romney and John McCain, who labored to appeal to swing voters.
Seeing an untapped reserve of more than 5 million conservative evangelical voters who sat out the 2012 presidential election, Cruz strategists reject the conventional GOP wisdom that argues for broadening the party's appeal.
Camp Cruz sees the pool of truly persuadable independent voters in America shrinking with every election cycle. "Presidential elections have become base elections," said Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe.
The blueprint for this ultra-base strategy was laid out in Cruz's campaign autobiography.
"The secret to GOP victory in 2016 really isn't much of one," Cruz wrote. "Republicans win the White House whenever we nominate a candidate who runs as a strong, principled conservative … We lose whenever we nominate the 'more electable' candidate who runs as a mushy establishment moderate."
At times overshadowed in the summer of Trump - and the drama of Rick Perry's quick exit - Cruz is increasingly being treated as a plausible candidate in a Republican Party that leans toward outsiders.
He's hauled in more than $26.5 million since his launch in March, built up one of the most extensive grassroots networks in the early primary states, and now polls in the same statistical neighborhood as "establishment" rivals Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
"This is the underwritten story," said Texas GOP political consultant Anthony Holm, who has worked on behalf of top statewide Republicans, including Perry and Attorney General Ken Paxton. "It's insane. This thing is a work of art, a masterpiece. These guys have been methodical in building their campaign."
Critics still see Cruz as flawed candidate in a general election, where Democrats could be counted on to highlight his most controversially apocalyptic warnings about President Barack Obama's policies on gay rights, immigration, the IRS, and health care.
"I can kind of squint my eyes and see Ted Cruz becoming the Republican nominee," said Harold Cook, a veteran Democratic strategist in Texas. "I can in no way squint my eyes and picture him getting the electoral votes to go to the White House."
Meanwhile, in a primary contest that has rewarded conservative iconoclasts like Trump and Carson, Cruz has sought to quietly position himself to inherit the anti-Washington conservatives who are currently flocking to Trump's loud runaway train.
"In time, I don't believe Donald is going to be the nominee," Cruz told talk radio host Rita Crosby this month. "And I think in time the lion's share of his supporters will end up with us."
Cruz's best showing so far was a recent Fox News national poll showing him in third place with 10 percent support, ahead of Bush and Rubio.
Although his campaign is struggling to break out of the single digits in most statewide polls outside of Texas, he has fared better in recent popularity contests of conservative activists.
He dominated the straw poll at a recent FreedomWorks gathering in Florida, taking 41 percent of the ballots cast by a group skewing heavily libertarian and Tea Party.
He also won a top 35 percent share of the votes in a recent Values Voters Summit, a national gathering of evangelicals and social conservatives.
"It is exceptionally unusual to see that depth of support of the grassroots across the country and across the spectrum of that old Reagan coalition," Cruz boasted last week on Meet the Press.
Venturing ever deeper into the recesses of the conservative movement, his campaign also celebrated a commanding 72 percent straw poll victory at the 603 Alliance Selection Caucus, a gathering of conservative activists in New Hampshire. He was the only candidate at the event.
To Cruz insiders, the straw poll results, while hardly binding or representative of all GOP primary voters, signify that small-government conservatives could eventually coalesce around the Texas U.S. senator, rather than split their vote among various candidates.
Playing a hybrid outsider "who has actually walked the walk," Cruz has been able to overcome a resume long on government jobs in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Bush administration, and the U.S. Senate, and turned himself into an everyman rebel taking on the "Washington cartel."
At the same time, he has been able to make inroads with the sorts of wealthy donors needed to keep pace in the big dollar money chase.
On Monday, when Cruz announces the endorsement of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, he will also bring on board a half-dozen former Perry supporters, including Dallas businessmen Darwin Deason and Kelcy Warren, who together contributed more than $10 million to Perry's Super PAC.
The $12.2 million Cruz raised in the third-quarter of this year nearly matched the $13.4 million posted by Bush, who started out as the prohibitive fundraising favorite. Cruz's total also eclipsed that of Carly Fiorina, who collected $6.8 million, Rubio, who pulled in $6 million, and a fading Rand Paul, who struggled to raise $2.5 million.
"The incredible progress we're making raising funds and building out a ground game to compete and win in the early primary and caucus states and beyond is undeniable," Roe wrote in a recent memo to supporters. "And people are taking notice."
For confirmation, Roe reminded supporters that "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd had declared "the Cruz moment is coming."
If Cruz's target demographic skews largely old, evangelical and white, he's also sought to tap into the power of social media and the energy of its youthful practitioners. Outside of the Odgaards, one of Cruz's most high-profile backers might be CJ Pearson, an outspoken 13-year-old black conservative from Georgia with a YouTube channel viewership of over 3 million.
Pearson chairs the "Teens for Ted" coalition along with Iowa homeschooler Wyatt English and Texas Republican activist Adam Hoffman, who attends a modern orthodox Jewish school in Houston.
"So many politicians say their passion is to make things great for their kids," said Hoffman, who is 15. "Well, heck, we are the kids, and we're fighting for our future."
But Cruz's hopes for the immediate future rest in the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa, where his father, the Rev. Rafael Cruz, sought out the Odgaards before they shuttered their gallery in Grimes last summer.
The Odgaards say they were never politically active before. But the national notoriety surrounding their legal case and their subsequent roles in the Cruz campaign's tight focus on religious conservatives has changed all that.
Said Richard Odgaard: "It's kind of like we're on a rocket."
He snagged the endorsement of Dan Patrick today.
http://www.texastribune.org/2015/10/24/cruz-wins-support-patrick-former-perry-donors/
Bump!
No more squishes.
The circus that is Trump has allowed Cruz to build his organization and fundraise all the while not taking much heat from attacking GOPe who are on their heals trying to figure out how to derail Trump.
Let's face it, the GOP field has 2 factions: the GOPe that are there to siphon votes away from various groups and thereby promote Bush and the anti-GOPe which includes Carson, Trump & Cruz.
There was a comment on a different thread by Dr. Carson in essence saying Trump on-camera was slightly different than off. There's something there. I don't think it'll be long after Bush exits the race before we get more of a glimpse what it is.
In before Trumpophiles begin their tirades!
Simple recipe - Cruz it or lose it.
If Cruz becomes the nominee, the RINO Rovian GOPe will work harder to defeat him than PIAPS.
They won’t need to. Too many potential Cruz votes die on the hill named H1B.
Nobody is wasting their time piling on Cruz. Which is why Cruz threads rarely goes beyond 20 replies.
What’s the deal on education? Why is Cruz a mixed yellow and Rubs and Trump are green?
“H1B”
It’s not those people that are killing people, raping women, spreading third world diseases, draining social spending, causing auto accidents ect, that’s the illegal Mexicans. So I doubt it’s as important to the vast majority of the electorate as you think.
Sorry, Sen. Cruz!
Correction:
Please click on the pictures at the top of the columns for more details on the ratings of the candidates.
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More at Conservative Review: https://www.conservativereview.com/2016-presidential-candidates
Note: If you don't like the ratings for any reason, please contact Conservative Review's Editor-in-Chief, "The Great One," Mark Levin. But I have to warn you that you may get this response from him: "GET OFF THE PHONE, YOU BIG DOPE!"
Agree he’s mushy on immigration, legal and illegal. Gonna take some major ads to make that known; only one with the cash might be Trump at that point. Gotta give Trump credit, he’s said the right things about stopping the 3rd World tidal wave.
Hey, a new and improved chart. :)
BWAAAAAHAHAHA....You’ve got quite a sense of humor.
“In before Trumpophiles begin their tirades!”
You haven’t seen tirades unless you get on an anti-Trump thread. The posters come across like psychopaths.
No, actually, I'd think letting conservatives back in the tent WOULD be broadening their appeal. To paraphrase the old saying, the GOP lately has been "Big Tent, No Conservatives".
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