Walker and Cruz are my two favorites. I think Walker is more electable as he has been thoroughly vetted via his recalls in Wisconsin. Cruz has not been challenged as strongly.
Walker has real leadership experience he can point toward with substantial conservative accomplishments. Cruz gives great speeches, introduces good legislation, but has not accomplished much more than that.
Walker comes from a not so safe state where Cruz comes from very conservative Texas.
Not looking at this as a conservative, but as the average voter (who makes or breaks elections), one can see that electing a first-term Senator with no leadership experience didn't work out so well the last time.
I guarantee they will use that against Cruz if he is our nominee.
While I am not a big fan of Rand Paul, I like having him in the Senate. I like having Cruz in the Senate. The Senate needs conservative leaders more than anywhere.
While I would love a Walker/Cruz ticket, I think conservatism is best served by Cruz remaining in the Senate and helping drive the agenda there with a conservative (Walker) in the White House.
Cruz is young. Let him run for governor of Texas and then POTUS in 20 years or so.
Good analysis of Walker and Cruz. It matters little to me who gets nominated among Walker, Cruz, Jindal, Perry, Kasich or Rand Paul. They will all be much better than Jeb Bush.
However if more than one of above stay in the race to the bitter end, lone RINO Jeb will win nomination by divide and conquer, a time and again proven strategy by the GOPe. And then many will blame the GOPe for foisting another RINO on us. The same posters never blame lack of unity among conservative candidates.
In 2012, 2008, 2004 the GOPe fielded only one candidate after SC-FL primaries. The more conservative candidates all stayed in attacking each other and dividing voters.