Republican candidate Jim Gilmore says that while “angry and frustrated” conservatives are tired of the “incremental” strategy of congressional Republican leaders, Sen. Ted Cruz’s combative approach to reducing government regulations isn’t the answer.
Asked to assess House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell during an interview published Sunday with Liberty Conservatives Magazine, Gilmore said “If they have a strategy, they really haven’t articulated it very well.”
The former Virginia governor added that “the incremental desire to nibble away is not working.”
However, Gilmore warned, he is no fan of Cruz’s approach, which he described as being akin to “smashing all the windows.”
Cruz has made a name for himself butting heads with “establishment” Republicans, and is often blamed by critics for leading the way to a partial government shutdown over Obamacare.
“I think that he has really hurt the country, and I’m not in favor of that type of approach,” Gilmore added.
Instead, Gilmore said the American people are “entitled to have real leadership coming out of the conservative Republican side. To reduce regulations, to actually change the way of thinking about government today.”
“We’ve become a regulatory and controlled society because of everything that’s been going on; through taxes, through regulations, through frankly, the big media, through the political parties, which are trying to dominate the choices that people have,” Gilmore continued. “And I think that people are angry and frustrated.”
“As president of the United States,” Gilmore said, “I intend to address the issue of how we can learn to be free people again, and really look back to our Constitution … and Declaration [of Independence] and remember that our rights don’t come from the government or from regulators. They come from God and they’re natural rights. And we need to remember that and learn how to be free people again.”
Gilmore concluded the interview stressing that he is “not the kind of person who is going to try and destroy everything,” but is also “not a person who is satisfied with this go along to get along type of approach that we’ve been seeing in Washington, D.C.”
“I’m asking asking people in the movement … not to be seduced by some of these other people who are phonies and pretend conservatives,” Gilmore said.
Gilmore has struggled to get a foothold in the polls, and has only qualified to participate in two of eight Republican debates. Despite only getting 12 votes in Iowa’s caucus last week, Gilmore has said he bypassed campaigning in the Hawkeye State to focus on New Hampshire, where the first-in-the-nation primary is set to take place on Tuesday.
