Posted on 12/15/2014 6:54:07 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The Texas Republican has traveled to both coasts in the hopes of winning over skeptical donors.
There's a downside to digging in. Just ask Ted Cruz.
Since being elected to Congress in 2012, the Texas Republican has established himself as a conservative icon. On everything from spending fights to immigration policy and social issues, Cruz has been a powerful and reliable voice of the far right. His push last year to defund Obamacarewhich shuttered the governmentcemented his image as an uncompromising champion of the tea party.
But now, as he prepares a presidential bid, Cruz needs to round out the rough edges. While his confrontations on Capitol Hill continue to energize the activist class, his reputation as an ideologically driven renegade is scaring off a key set of influentials: the major Republican donors needed to finance a winning presidential campaign.
"I get the impression that Ted Cruz appeals almost exclusively to the far right of the base, and that he has not attempted to really reach out either to his colleagues in the Senate or to donors who are not in that group," said Fred Malek, a top Republican fundraiser who chaired Sen. John McCain's finance operation in 2008.
The foundation of a Cruz presidential campaign looks solid. He has brought in strong organizational talent. His alliances are multiplying in the early nominating states. And his standing among the grassroots has never been better. But one important area remains a source of concern: fundraising.
It's a vulnerability Cruz is working to address. Earlier this month, the senator slipped away to Los Angeles for a series of meetings with top GOP donors, a trip that included a dinner at the California Club with a group of some 20 Republicans who served as bundlers for Mitt Romney in 2012.
Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt moderated the event, and said many of the attendeeswhom he described as "Steve Forbes Republicans"came away impressed. "There were blunt electability questions," Hewitt said. By the time Cruz departed the dinner, he added, "they were all very, very pleasantly surprised."
Hewitt declined to repeat Cruz's argument for his own electability, but said: "He's in the process of proving to people that he's more Reagan than Goldwater. Opponents of his want to stick the Goldwater tag on him, so his challenge is proving that he's more Reagan than Goldwater."
The California swing came on the heels of a whirlwind tour through Manhattan in late November, which included a lengthy one-on-one meeting with GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson. Cruz aimed in both trips to correct what he calls a media-driven "caricature" of himselfone that took hold last year after he spearheaded a strategy to defund the Affordable Care Act that ultimately led to a government shutdown.
Despite the recent coastal visits, Cruz's charm offensive begins in his own backyard, with some of the same Texas donors who shunned him two years ago.
Cruz shocked the political world in 2012 with his primary victory over Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, an establishment favorite who outraised Cruz by a ratio of more than 3-to-1. Conservative outside groups helped drive a flurry of small, out-of-state donations to Cruz, but he was walloped among large-dollar donors. That experience makes for an inspiring David-versus-Goliath tale, but it's not a winning model for a White House campaign. Team Cruz knows that grassroots enthusiasm can only take a candidate so far; to be viable for a party's presidential nomination, major donors must be in play.
"Sen. Cruz's team is more recentlylike, within the last few monthsreaching out more to the donors and business leaders and community leaders to start building those relationships," said Republican Rep. Kevin Brady, a veteran of the Texas delegation. "His first year was really spent building a national persona and image, and it's my impression that he's now laying the groundwork in Texas."
Brady said it will take time for Cruz to make inroads with these donors, but added that the senator has "a wonderful, not-so-secret weapon" at his disposal: his wife. Heidi Nelson Cruz is a top executive with Goldman Sachs; she also serves on the Greater Houston Partnership Board, an organization full of political contributors. "She's well-respected and has lots of admirers," Brady said. "So that could be part of the reaching outwhether it's Wall Street or Texas."
Brady, himself a master fundraiser with deep connections to the political spenders in Dallas and Houston, said the donor community has taken notice of the freshman senator's newfound interest in their campaign dollars.
Cruz's outreach, however, has not produced an instant conversion among the GOP's donor elite. Adelson found Cruz to be "too right wing," according the New York Observer. (Adelson later disputed that characterization, but it seemed to be a recurring theme during Cruz's swing through New York. At another meeting in Manhattan, he answered a similar assertion by saying: "I don't think I'm all that conservative.")
And the senator's latest confrontation on Capitol Hillprovoking a weekend session of Congress that was aimed at making a point on immigration but resulted in more of President Obama's nominees being confirmedwill only play into the negative stereotype that's scaring off potential financiers of Cruz's presidential campaign.
"His views, as well as his actions," Malek said, "are a lot further to the right than the mainstream of Republican donors."
Cruz's allies acknowledge that he isn't likely to win over most of these donors anyway; his record of intra-party troublemaking is disqualifying for many establishment Republicans looking for a quick, clean primary contest. What Cruz hopes to accomplish, then, is perhaps something less tangibleif not converting neutral players into loyal supporters, at least softening opposition to the point where an "anyone-but-Cruz" campaign never gets off the ground.
Agreed. Nobody could really be that darn ignorant of the facts, it HAD to be sarc. or some sort of leg pull......looks like we were wrong tho!
You are a democrat MOLE
Mike Lee: Dont blame Ted Cruz and me for letting Harry Reid push through a bunch of Obamas nominees
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/12/15/mike-lee-dont-blame-ted-cruz-and-me-for-letting-harry-reid-push-through-a-bunch-of-obamas-nominees/
What you said is exactly what Pat Robertson said on the 700 Club today. I was bitterly disappointed to hear Pat bashing him on national TV. Ted is the best hope we have, and Christians should be thanking God for him, not bashing and bad-mouthing hi. GO TED!!
Well stated ‘erk. Very good post. If you read thru this thread from the start you saw how utterly carpet bombed the ‘RAT troll was tonight and rebutted by every other poster. (Some very good links were put up to peruse also.) He didn’t fool anyone with his Ted Cruz bashing did he?
Did Ted Cruz Give Harry Reid One Last Victory?
Despite what Ted's aides are saying, he knows it isn't true. He allowed the GOP to get rolled.
"One Senate GOP aide says Cruz and Lee played right into Reids hands by giving him an extra couple of days to play with."
I am all for standing up for principle, and I hate Executive Amnesty for Illegal Invaders. But all Ted did was hurt Conservatism. A bunch of Commies are now appointed because Cruz wanted the limelight.
Either Cruz doesn't know the Parliamentary rules of the Senate, or he is an incompetent dope. Actually, there is a third option: this was never about "stopping" the evil that is Obama and the Democrats, this was about the Iowa Caucus in 2016, and what Ted thought it could do for his political career.
The GOP could have blocked these nominations. They were planning to block them. They had the power to block them if Cruz had not opened up the Senate to votes.
It reinvigorated the Senate, the Democrats, and gave Reid one last chance to shaft Conservatives.
Republicans Are Mad At Ted Cruz For Doing Democrats A Big Favor
Really? 16 years on FR and that is how you see Cruz? No wonder we're screwed as a nation.
The worship Ted, even when he is wrong, is apalling and does not reflect well. We have a herd mentality here at times.
Forget the slurs and aspersions.
You can despise Ted Cruz as much as you wish. It is, as they used to say more accurately, a free country.
But it would be great to know whom you see as an alternative.
Who is your candidate? How is that man (or woman) proposing to deal with Obamacare, amnesty, trillion dollar omnibus bills, etc., etc....who is it and what are his/her ideas?
i don’t believe anything you and your liberal media masters say. all even here believed the media’s ebola lie.where is that now . you are a democrat mole , a sleeper mole and you don’t fool me. away with you troll
I’m pretty familiar with the rules of the Senate. Not to the level of, say, a Sheets Byrd, mind you, but probably better than the average MSM hack.
Please see Post #31 and reconcile with what you are claiming.
My understanding of the Senate rules, and reading of what has transpired, is that Reid was going to pull the nominations stunt anyways. The cloture ordering (see post 31) IMHO confirms that. Cruz’s actions provided a convienient pretext, something to taunt Conservatives over using divide/conquor wedge issues tactics. But the nomination votes were going to happen anyways given 1) Reids ability as majority leader to set the schedule and 2) the 50+1 vote threshold under the nuclear option.
Really?
You are so against this good Christian man and the conservative Christian base that you want to claim we worship him rather, than support him as the Reagan in the Senate?
How in the world did our best conservative hope become your most hated republican, who are your leading republicans for 2016?
Liberal masters is right. These ‘RAT trolls who stick there pointy little ‘RAT heads out from their holes can just take their Ted Cruz hate back to the DUmp.....where they will be welcomed BACK with open arms.
How is President Juan McNuts these days anyhow, Fred?
Really? You can take a lump of gold and turn it into a lemon. Wow.
Here is why:
- By doing what he did, Cruz allowed almost all of Reid's planned jammed nominations to go forward and were confirmed. He would not have gotten all 23 had Cruz not done so. Yes, Reid was planning votes this week, after the planned budget vote that had been agreed upon. But Reid could not have hoped to get them all through. Thanks to Cruz, Reid did.
"At the root of the dispute lay a combination of the Senate's all-but-indecipherable rules, Cruz's attempt to use their murky corners to his advantage, and a bipartisan desire of many lawmakers to finish work for the year and return home for the holidays. "My concern about the strategy he employed is that it has a result he didn't intend," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said of Cruz' maneuverings on Friday night, when he sought to force a vote on Obama's immigration policy. Among the consequences, she said, would be confirmation of a number of appointees who are controversial, including some to "lifetime judicial" posts. Some officials said Cruz was personally informed by GOP aides that Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid was primed to take advantage if he went ahead. Under the Senate's rules, Cruz's maneuver allowed Reid to begin the time-consuming process of confirming nominations on Saturday at noon when lawmakers had been scheduled to be home for the weekend. Had Cruz not made his move when he did, according to officials in both parties, Reid would have had to wait until Monday night more than 48 hours later. Disgruntled Republicans said they felt confident that Reid's rank and file would not have been willing to remain in Washington in that case, and only four or five nominees would be confirmed instead of 23."
- It gets even worse. By allowing Reid to bring the nominations to the floor, the full Senate knew they had not even voted on a short term CR, much less the full budget. Reid now had even more power and leverage, and he used it to full advantage. Now, we are stuck with lifetime liberal judges and a Surgeon General who is going to use "public health" as a weapon against the 2nd Amendment.
Thanks Ted.
"Far more important, in the minds of Republicans, was that Reid responded by launching an immediate effort to confirm the judicial and agency appointees, some of them long stalled. One of them, Christopher Smith, has been awaiting Senate confirmation to an Energy Department post since January."
Cruz and his allies are accusing others of "spinning" the facts, which is outrageous. It is he who is spinning. The GOP Senate and their aides knew Reid would exploit this maneuver, and tried to warn Cruz. He didn't care. He went rogue to make his point.
I HATE Executive Amnesty! But this was akin to a soldier charging naked into a machine gun nest.
And the American people will now pay a price for it.
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.