Peterborough, N.H.
When former state house speaker Bill O’Brien took to the stage Sunday afternoon to introduce Ted Cruz, he asked the crowd of at least 500 how many were from out of state. More than half of the room at the Peterborough town hall raised their hands.
This underscores the belief of political professionals and journalists: New Hampshire, the mantra goes, is not a “good state” for Cruz. The evangelical son of a pastor who ends each speech asking voters to “lift this country up in prayer”, Cruz is trying to build on his win in Iowa last week with at least a respectable showing in the first Republican primary of the year. But it won’t come easy.
That’s clear enough from the moment you turn on Main Street here in this charming town in southern New Hampshire. This is the kind of place that has fancy boutiques that sell hat boxes. The largest church, a Unitarian Universalist one, has a rainbow flag displayed proudly underneath its steeple. Not that churches here have much influence anyway. Gallup just announced New Hampshire has overtaken Vermont as the least religious state in the union.
I have yet to see a Cruz for President road sign, though if signs translated into votes, Carly Fiorina and Jeb Bush ought to be leading in the polls. There was, however, a large Gadsden flag, the unofficial standard of the Tea Party movement, raised at one home on the drive into Peterborough. If Cruz hopes to have a good showing in New Hampshire, it will be because voters here appreciated the Texas senator’s devotion to the Constitution.
So it was no surprise Cruz took a different, more libertarian tack on Sunday than he had in evangelical-heavy Iowa. He emphasized the need for the next president to adhere to the laws and Constitution of the United States, with special mention of some of the Bill of Rights, like the Tenth Amendment. One of his biggest applause came as he declared he would defend the Second amendment, and a few people actually stomped their feet in agreement. “You know one of the things I love about the Granite State is y’all define gun control the same way we do in Texas: hittin’ what ya aim at,” Cruz said.
Cruz also called for defending the Fourth and Fifth amendments—”Our rights to privacy,” as he put it. “How many of y’all have your cell phones?” he asked. “Let me ask you, please leave your cell phones on. I want to make sure President Obama hears every word we say today.” This is a new line is Cruz’s repertoire, perhaps inserted after his Republican rival and civil libertarian Rand Paul dropped out of the presidential race after Iowa.
There were a few moments Cruz took to contrast himself with the rest of the GOP field, most notably on the issue raised in Saturday’s debate about requiring women to register for the Selective Service. (He says it “doesn’t make sense.”) But what was striking was how focused Cruz was on general-election arguments for his candidacy and his version of a Republican vision for the country.
There’s his pitch to the middle-class on economic concerns: “My number-one priority in the U.S. Senate and as president is economic growth. His appeal to non-Republican voters: “Every gathering we go to, I’ve men and women who come up to me and say, ‘I’m a Democrat. I’ve been a Democrat my whole life.’ Two days ago, at a town hall we were doing in New Hampshire, a gentleman came up to me and said, ‘I’m a member of the carpenters’ union. Don’t tell my union boss I’m here, but I’m with you.'”
During the Q&A, the toughest question Cruz received came from Ana Tenewitz, a student at Emerson College in Boston who was one of an entourage of political tourists from the other side of the state line. Tenewitz wanted to know what a President Cruz would do about racial, gender, and LGBT inequality. Cruz ignored the direct question and instead launched into long disquisition on how federal regulations like Obamacare encourage economic inequality. It was a great answer, not meant to appeal to social-justice warriors at Emerson College but instead to independents in New Hampshire and beyond.
So what did Tenewitz think of Cruz’s answer? “He didn’t answer the question,” she told me afterward. “He talked about inequality, but he talked about economic inequality, which does affect social inequality. But he did not talk directly about social inequality.”
It’s hard to believe Cruz is worried about losing Tenewitz’s vote. After all, she’s not even from New Hampshire.
