Yes, he did.
He bought copies of the book written by Obama's campaign manager, passed them out to his staff, and said they were going to use everything that worked and throw away what didn't.
Makes me respect Cruz even more!
Posted on 12/27/2015 4:05:50 PM PST by VinL
Ted Cruz has assembled an impressive presidential campaign structure in Iowa, veteran political observers here say, with one going so far as to describe Cruz’s campaign as perhaps "the most sophisticated" the first in the nation caucus state has ever witnessed.
Because of that grass roots organization, Cruz is primed to maintain his recent surge in the polls and win the Iowa Republican caucuses in five weeks, those observers say.
Cruz, the Tea Party firebrand and first term U.S. Sen. from Texas, was the first Republican candidate to enter the presidential race, on March 23. Nine months later, he has overtaken longtime front-runner Donald Trump in several polls published recently in Iowa, including a 10 percentage-point lead in the highly regarded Iowa Poll.
In Iowa, Cruz has appealed to the state's abundance of evangelical Republicans and attempted to tap into the anti establishment sentiment that pervades Republican voters this year.
Cruz's success also stems from a massive and innovative campaign structure, according to Iowa campaign veterans.
Cruz "has probably put together one of the most sophisticated, if not the most sophisticated, organizational efforts this state has ever seen," said Dave Nagle, a three term Democratic member of Congress and now a lawyer in Waterloo.
Doug Gross, who led Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign in Iowa and has served on numerous other campaigns, called Cruz's the best campaign operation among the 2016 candidates.
"Frankly it's a textbook operation how to win a caucus campaign," Gross said.
Volunteers
Cruz started his Iowa campaign by solidifying support among Tea Party voters, the bloc that launched his election to the U.S. Senate in 2010, according to Catherine Frazier, the national press secretary for Cruz’s campaign. Then, Frazier said, Cruz courted evangelical voters, libertarians and even moderates.
Cruz's campaign has a chairperson in each of the state’s 99 counties many with several co chairs — more than 2,000 volunteers, and a network of pastors advocating for Cruz, according to Frazier.
The campaign conducted an effective voter targeting effort among various ideologies within the Republican Party and waited to pick off voters who in recent weeks have peeled off from supporting Trump and Ben Carson, said Nagle and Gross.
"What (Cruz) planned is working precisely to his desires," Gross said.
John Stineman, who led Steve Forbes's presidential campaign in Iowa in 2000 and has worked 14 years as a consultant, described Cruz’s campaign as similar to the data-driven, history making effort Barack Obama employed here in 2008 and 2012.
"It's a very elaborate, very aggressive, very well informed grass roots swarming strategy," Stineman said.
Cruz also has won the endorsement primary in Iowa. With the state’s top elected Republicans U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst and Gov. Terry Branstad pledging to stay out of the endorsement game, Cruz's scored a trifecta with endorsements from staunch conservative U.S. Rep. Steve King, social conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats and conservative radio host Steve Deace.
"One thing that's incredible is that this started off as a race with everyone looking at Sen. Cruz as a Tea Party candidate," Frazier said. "And here we are today.. he is viewed as not only a Tea Party candidate but an evangelical candidate. And that's incredibly important in Iowa."
The efforts appear to be paying off.
Cruz's polling average in Iowa on Nov. 1, as calculated by Real Clear Politics, still was in the single digits at 9.6 percent, fourth best in the expansive Republican field.
That polling average in the past two months has more than tripled to 30.2 percent, which leads all Republicans.
While other Republican candidates have surged to the top of the GOP field and then faltered — think Scott Walker and Carson ,, observers in Iowa said they think Cruz is better positioned to remain strong in the race through the Feb. 1 caucuses.
'I'd be shocked if he doesn't win going away," Gross said of Cruz. "He built his organization, then he developed his narrative, and that organization captured the narrative, while others are still trying to build a narrative. And it’s too late to build a narrative."
Cruz could get "Huckabee type numbers," Stineman said, referring to Mike Huckabee’s then record setting 2008 victory in the Iowa caucuses. Stineman said Cruz appears to be solidifying a healthy percentage of the state’s most conservative voters, while several candidates, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich, for example, all appear to be competing for more moderate Republican voters.
"Failure for one of those folks to really take off and get Romney like numbers, I think that's to Cruz's benefit," Stineman said. "It points to why he's not only in the lead, but why he's, I think, at this point favored to win."
Cruz, however, cannot spend the next five weeks coasting to a victory in Iowa, observers cautioned.
That which so many Republican voters like about Cruz, his willingness to rankle even his Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate, also upsets some Republicans, Stineman noted.
And Nagle said there exists the threat that Cruz is peaking too early. Now that Cruz is battling for the top spot in the polls, the focus from media and voters will intensify, Nagle said.
"I used to be widely quoted with the 'Nagle’s three rules for success in the Iowa caucus.' Rule No. 1 is organize, rule No. 2 is organize, and rule No. 3 is get hot at the end," Nagle said. "If (Cruz) has any danger right now, it's he's gotten hot too early. He'd be much better to be peaking in the second or third week of January."
And yet Nagle thinks, thanks in large part to that campaign organization that has helped solidify conservative voters, Cruz is in position to sustain his recent polling numbers and be competitive on caucus night Feb. 1 and even after the presidential primary process leaves Iowa.
"He's in prime position to do very well here," Nagle said. "And I also think he’s in prime position to do very well on Super Tuesday.
"He's the real deal."
Yes, he did.
He bought copies of the book written by Obama's campaign manager, passed them out to his staff, and said they were going to use everything that worked and throw away what didn't.
Makes me respect Cruz even more!
Let me assure every one here and I like Cruz. but he will never win Iowa like Santorum did. Trumpsters will flood those cauci like you can’t imagine. I fully expect Trump to win 45%. Then New Hampshire — then South Carolina - Then the nomination. They wanted “Winner take all” for bush — now they get “winner take all” for Trump. Let them eat okra.
Exactly. ;)
I’d be willing to bet that he managed to improve on Obama’s strategy.
Not my area of expertise, but I think so.
Frankly it doesn't matter to me whether Trump or Cruz wins Iowa. So long as the RINO candidates are bringing up the rear. I think both Trump and Cruz will get their share of delegates in Iowa.
What some don't realize is that over a year ago, six months before he even entered the race, Trump hired Chuck Laudner to run his Iowa campaign. Laudner is the same guy who engineered Santorum's victory there four years ago.
So I'm confident Trump is getting good advice and that his "ground game" is much stronger than some of the Cruz folks seem to think it is. I'm sure that Trump's "flying in like a rock star" rankles some of them and they are therefore looking for Trump to get his comeuppance in Iowa. But I fear they are setting themselves up for a fall if they think Trump is going to allow himself to get smoked.
Typically only 20% of the registered Republican voters show up for these caucuses. When Santorum won in 2012, he obtained LESS than 30,000 votes statewide. A typical Trump rally has between 7,000 and 15,000 people at a minimum and he's done at least a dozen of them already in Iowa. Probably more and certainly more in the weeks to come. If even 20% of those coming to rallies shows up for the caucus, Trump will easily eclipse the 30,000 votes Santorum got in 2012. Many of these will be net new voters that previously did not participate in caucusing.
So looking through the prism of previous turnouts and an energized evangelical base that produced surprise victories for Santorum in 2012 and Huckabee in 2008, it would appear Cruz is in very good shape indeed, as he appears to have locked up the evangelical vote in that state. What remains to be seen is how many NEW voters come out on caucus night. If Trump can bring a lot of new blood to the caucus precincts, we could see surprising results.
While Iowa is not strategically that important, it is a very good litmus test to see how many new voters Trump can bring to the polling places. People who in years past were disillusioned with the choices offered and so stayed home.
...Cruz has probably put together one of the most sophisticated, organizational efforts this state has ever seen...... the best campaign operation among the 2016 candidates, frankly it's a textbook operation how to win a caucus campaign.......What Cruz planned is working precisely to his desire.....It's a very elaborate, very aggressive, very well informed grass roots swarming strategy.............. with endorsements from staunch conservative U.S. Rep. Steve King, social conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats and conservative radio host Steve Deace......
...THE BOOTS HAVE IT, AND MADE FOR WALKING THE TALK ALL THE WAY TO THE WHITEHOUSE! 
That’s what he told us in NH in April, but I have to say, Trump’s campaign more closely resembles Obama’s 08 campaign in terms of social media than does Cruz.
Trump’s campaign more closely resembles Obama’s 08 campaign in terms of social media than does Cruz.
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I’m not up on social media, so I don’t know. I’ve read where Trump is doing many things that are not outwardly apparent, perhaps that’s the case.
What Cruz is doing has been easy to read and quantify, so one can make some projections. On the other hand, Trump may be all about stealth, and surprise everyone with a “hidden” organization.
No....not Romney....more like Reagan even though Reagan lost Iowa to Bush by just a 2% margin...Cruz studied that and wasn’t about to make Reagans mistake...which Reagan always thanked Iowans for giving him a swift kick in the pants which thereafter Reagan swept the South, which Cruz was building his foundation there while everyone was at the fair....
When I and others met with Cruz in March or Aoril he emphasized that he was doing the whole social media, entrepreneurial model and he specifically cited Obama’s 08 campaign. What he has, in fact, is a traditional Rove-type campaign. Now, that may be plenty-—but it is nothing like what he laid out.
Well, frankly, if you’ve met with and discussed the campaign with Cruz, you’re far more informed than I. My knowledge comes from the articles I read. In this article:
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“Cruz has probably put together one of the most sophisticated, if not the most sophisticated, organizational efforts this state has ever seen,” said Dave Nagle, a three-term Democratic member of Congress and now a lawyer in Waterloo.
John Stineman, who led Steve Forbes’s presidential campaign in Iowa in 2000 and has worked 14 years as a consultant, described Cruz’s campaign as similar to the data driven, history making effort Barack Obama employed here in 2008 and 2012. “It’s a very elaborate, very aggressive, very well informed grass roots swarming strategy,” Stineman said.
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So, these guys say it’s like Obama’s campaign, but if Cruz told you he modeled it on Rove, I don’t doubt you.
Just sounds to me like he changed between March and July. Not a big deal.
Oh MAN, don’t do that!
Caucuses seem un-American. You give your support openly and are lobbied to change your position. I don't like that. Better is the secret ballot.
Trump has 3x the Facebook likes and an astonishing 9 times the Twitter followers as does Cruz.
you need to get in touch w freeper Parksstp. Compare notes on Iowa, it would provide great insight into the Caucas’
Thanks
>>He needs to make a mountain out of a mole hill since most that win Iowa don’t get nominated that often.<<
Or, put another way, the last five winners of the Presidential election have won Iowa....
>>Caucuses seem un-American. You give your support openly and are lobbied to change your position. I don’t like that. Better is the secret ballot.<<
You’re describing the Dem caucus. The GOP uses a secret ballot and the ballot is cast without anyone knowing your position ahead of time and pressuring you to change it. At least that’s my understanding of it.
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