Posted on 04/02/2015 11:48:22 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is making a play for the West in the 2016 race by touting his opposition to the federal governments expansive land holdings.
Cruzs disdain for federal land control is resonating with Westerners whose lives are impacted by land managers, and could help him win over conservatives in Nevada, one of the early nominating states in the presidential contest.
This is an issue hes been focused on for quite some time, and its one that plays extremely well with the conservative base in the western part of the United States, said Ford OConnell, a GOP strategist who advised the 2008 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
Nationwide, the government owns nearly 630 million acres, a landmass bigger than Alaska and California combined. Most of that land, managed by agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service, is located in states west of the Mississippi River.
Federal control is particularly heavy in Nevada, where the government owns 81 percent of all land, the most of any state.
This is something that has been a perennial issue in the West since it became part of the United States, said James McCarthy, a historian at Clark University. Its a staple of western politics to complain about that.
OConnell said Nevada is especially receptive to issues of land rights, and said opposing federal control could play extremely well there for Cruz....
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Ol' Ford OConnell needs to start reading a newspaper or the Internet. He's a few weeks behind on the polls. No wonder McCain flamed out, with staffers like that.
Send the IRS agents into Mexico to disarm the peeps given the F&F weapons.
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