"First thing we need to do is get all the cigarette and Marijuana joint burns off of here"
Posted on 01/19/2015 5:23:34 PM PST by xzins
Team Ted Cruz is taking shape, and the Senate first-termer's presidential campaign could start before this spring.
The Republican senator from Texas tentatively plans to fill senior campaign positions with the triumvirate he signed last summer to expand his political operation. At the top is Jeff Roe, whose organizational title is undefined but who would be the campaign’s chief strategic and logistics decision-maker. Jason Miller would shape and oversee campaign messaging; Lauren Lofstrom would direct fundraising.
Cruz is in the process of “feeling out” additional campaign hires and prospective donors in preparation to join the field of 2016 candidates. If the senator decides to run for president, he wants to hit the ground at full speed, a senior Cruz advisor confirmed Monday.
Roe, founder of the direct mail firm Axiom Strategies, has never managed a presidential campaign. But he advised Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Rick Perry in 2012 and is familiar with the terrain in the early primary states. Republicans who have worked with Roe describe him as a talented strategist who is capable keeping a campaign operation humming. Perhaps most importantly, Roe is a good fit for Cruz’ aggressive style.
“He is a mean, bare-knuckles brawler,” one Republican operative told the Washington Examiner.
Rounding out the team are pollster Chris Perkins, who earned plaudits for being among the few to correctly forecast November’s Georgia Senate race, and Jason Johnson, the senator’s longtime political consigliere. Nick Muzin, Cruz's deputy chief of staff in his Senate office, is steeped in South Carolina politics. He is viewed as someone who might take a leave of absence from Cruz' Senate office to join the campaign.
Johnson, meanwhile, is often referred to as Cruz’s “political brain." He is rooted in the Texas GOP establishment and has been with the senator the longest among his advisors. Johnson served as chief of staff to Greg Abbott for a period when the incoming governor was state attorney general. It was in Abbott’s office that he and Cruz, then the the Lone Star State's solicitor general, bonded. Johnson guided Cruz to second place and then victory, respectively, in Texas’ 2012 GOP primary and runoff contests.
Those two races constitute the 44-year-old lawmaker’s only experience with competitive campaigns. Cruz had a very easy time in his general election win against an under-funded, no-name Democrat. Republican insiders expect Cruz to contend for first choice among GOP primary voters who favor the most confrontational and conservative candidate. But to compete for the nomination, Cruz has to step up his game.
“His early reviews among tea party audiences have been stellar in Iowa,” a Republican insider in the Hawkeye State told the Examiner. “I don't think he can appeal as broadly in the party or in the general electorate as other candidates, but his support will be intense among those voters who have the highest anger score.”
Cruz has countered that to win the White House, Republicans must nominate a strong conservative who contrasts sharply with the Democratic nominee, likely Hillary Clinton.
Cruz has maintained a vigorous political travel schedule and been a constant presence in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — hosts, in that order, of the first three 2016 primary contests. On Sunday, he was in Myrtle Beach to address the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention. Cruz has cast himself as the conservative alternative in a field that could feature multiple Establishment and Tea Party candidates. That is consistent with the image Cruz has cultivated since bursting onto the national scene three years ago.
In 2012, Cruz defeated an Establishment favorite in his GOP Senate primary. Once on Capitol Hill, he led a campaign to derail Obamacare by leveraging a government shutdown and opposed comprehensive immigration reform plans that included a pathway to legalization for illegal immigrants. These moves helped Cruz solidify a fevered fan base, particularly among Tea Party Republicans, and positioned him as a national leader.
But competing for the presidential nomination, which will be decided by more than just the most conservative voters or those sympathetic to the Tea Party, requires organization, money and an expanded network of supporters. Cruz has to assemble all of that from scratch. If the senator is as skilled at the business of campaigning as he is debating, he could surge into the top tier of candidates and propel himself beyond South Carolina. Getting there usually depends at least somewhat on how a candidate performs in Iowa and New Hampshire.
In Iowa, Cruz is expected to face stiff competition in the struggle to be king conservative. The likely field includes former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the 2008 caucuses; former Sen. Rick Santorum, who won the 2012 caucuses; neurosurgeon Ben Carson; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal; Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, and others. In New Hampshire, the top overall contenders could include 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; New Hersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
“Cruz’s politics are likely too conservative for the New Hampshire electorate; his willingness to engage voters will serve him well here,” a Granite State GOP insider said. “Still, expectations for him here will be low. A strong showing in New Hampshire as the top conservative alternative would be a shot in Cruz’s arm.”
Usual trick of the elitist and establishments on both sides.
They did it to Sarah, but they also know Sarah, Cruz, and Mike Lee can shape this country back to greatness and not be a laughing stock in the world anymore
turned the TV and all I have heard is how Bozo’s numbrs have gone up and how Bush and Romney are the best going forward.
B/S. Mike Lee, Sarah or Cruz have the guts to take the left on and shape things up but the establishment hates their elitist cocktail parties taken over by those who can fight for social and fiscal matters.
America could so easily get used to that! A real patriot in the seat!
The GOP has 54 senators but is still for all practical purposes in a hopeless minority.
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You need to get off the crack pipe old man.
Exciting news! Thank you for posting!
I trust him because I believe whatever he may sound like in this run...when he gets to washington he will navigate the terrain in such a way as is favorable to Conservatives....but not without having to also give where he knows in the end it will get this country back under the Constitution. You have to give the man "play room"...so that he can gain what really matters most.
You posted this on another Ted Cruz article and another Freeper pointed out four different Ted Cruz articles totally disproving your assertion...Why do you continue to post false misleading information?
that “freeper” sounds like a democrat mole to me
>> Ted Cruz builds his White House team
This will force the GOP-e candidates to campaign like Conservatives. And then we point out the lying scoundrels for what they truly are?
2016 is not going to be easy. Conservatives will be battling the MSM that will be manipulating the Republican Primaries.
Show me one way the 54 has made any difference.
I have one question: Was Ted Cruz at the SOTU? If so, where was his voice when Obama presented an illegal alien the right to stand at an American President’s side , treasured more highly than any American citizen?
Not one person in that room can save us what we have allowed to flourish so long. Stop acting like that is a possibility. A corrupted government will never cleanse a corrupted government. They are all certainly corrupt.
He had to. Imagine Obama in charge then.
We would all be digging our mass graves in the light of atomic afterglow, or learning to speak Russian in the gulag.
It was either war by proxy and economics or open war by nuclear weapons and mass casualties. Which both sides did not want (it is worthwhile to note that it did almost occur, on one occasion I know of, nearly on accident). Both governments knew what the latter would mean to human civilization, played chess, and America won. Through cleverness, or deception. America won.
It is also worthwhile to note that in my opinion, belief, and observations that I have come to the conclusion that two things happened when Russia lost.
1.) America declared herself victor of the war and moved on.
2.) Russia grudgingly declared defeat of a solitary battle, and moved onto lengthy, decades long plans to win all the future battles.
If you think Russian thinkers have not been instrumental in what has been going on in America since the end of the cold war (what very well could have been WWIII) then you need to read up. Read what Russian thinkers proposed about implementing communism in America, before we won the battle of the Cold War. Then apply those ideas to today. It’s very simple to connect the dots.
I think it’s possible that we didn’t even really win. But we were allowed to, for Russia to move onto more subtle psyops, knowing the geopolitical climate would never have allowed them to win.
The worst enemy you can have is an enemy hiding in plain sight, while you rally them to fight a known enemy, knives are slipped between your ribs.
Yep, and Cruz is a major player to keep the conservative patriotic Americans hoping that a corrupted government can somehow turn a rotted apple into a ripe apple. When in reality the apple should be destroyed, and used as compost for a new tree.
Because without hope men become desperate.
Desperate men are unpredictable, and willing to fight. Like a cornered animal with no where to go but through their pursuer.
I honestly wonder at how much damage will turn up once these @holes are ejected from office, if they ever leave...
You seem to be suggesting that at some point in the future we will be able to vote in principled representatives, but that can’t have already started happening.
Let’s say that Cruz is a principled leader. Let’s say he stood up in the middle of Obama’s speech last night and denounced the illegal presence.
You and I both know it would have been portrayed as the act of a crazy man, and it would have injured the drive to get more principled leaders inside the Congress.
Roe, founder of the direct mail firm Axiom Strategies, has never managed a presidential campaign. But he advised Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Rick Perry in 2012 and is familiar with the terrain in the early primary states.”
Related to Karl?
“I don’t think he can appeal as broadly in the party or in the general electorate as other candidates,”
Seriously? WHy not? What exactly has he said or done that’s so off the wall? If anything, I think the guy appeals across the board, if his message is allowed to resonate.
I think Romney would have made a great president, but I detest the idea that he and his minions are going to enter another campaign and brow beat and defame the other republican candidates like did.
The whole damn bunch of Sunnunu etc hopefully will stay home.
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