Emmetsburg, Iowa
In the final days before the caucuses here, the Ted Cruz campaign insists their only real opponent is Donald Trump. “It’s a binary choice,” said Steve King, the congressman from Iowa’s northwest corner and the most prominent Cruz supporter in the state. “Either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.”
That was King’s message to potential caucusgoers as he, Texas congressman Louie Gohmert, and Cruz and his wife Heidi stumped through three tiny towns in north-central Iowa Friday. As far as closing arguments go, it isn’t a bad one. The Iowans coming to see Cruz aren’t big fans of Trump, with some saying the New York businessman doesn’t represent the party or their conservative values.
Cruz’s surrogates are working to remind Iowa Republicans of Trump’s own values. “I know this may not be politically correct,” said Gohmert to preface his warning about Trump’s multiple marriages, what the Texas congressman described as “breaking his vows.”
“Will he keep his vows to you?” Gohmert asked the voters in Ringsted.
There’s more crossover with the Cruz crowd among admirers of Ben Carson and Marco Rubio. Bryan Kruse, a 37-year-old farmer from Ringsted, says he really likes Carson but feels Cruz has sealed the deal by having both experience and strong principles. “I kind of like Rubio,” said Donna Jensen, 75 and also from Ringsted. “But I think Cruz convinced me today.”
The campaign is trying to cajole voters to reach this conclusion: the other candidates may be admirable, but it’s time to coalesce around Cruz and, implicitly, against Trump. The appeal of this pitch is obvious. Add, for instance, Carson’s 8 percent average in the Iowa polls to Cruz’s 25 percent, and suddenly Cruz is at 33 percent, 2 points ahead of Trump.
The problem? Trump’s not the only problem for Cruz in Iowa. Rubio may be another, with the Florida senator creeping into the upper teens in a few recent polls as Cruz’s numbers sit in the low twenties. If Rubio finishes in a closer third place than most expect on February 1, that could boost him in New Hampshire and give the Rubio campaign some much-needed life for a longer primary battle.
Campaign officials downplay the Rubio threat, but Cruz and his surrogates don’t seem to be taking chances. King and Gohmert talked a great deal about how excited they were to see Rubio, who ran for the Senate in 2010 as an opponent of amnesty, elected to office. “So there were no two more brokenhearted people than Steve and I when he joined up with John McCain and Chuck Schumer,” Gohmert said, shaking his head in mock disappointment. Heidi Cruz, meanwhile, delivers the campaign’s preferred way of distinguishing its candidate from Rubio. “He is a consistent conservative,” she says of her husband. “Not a campaign conservative.”
Consistency is one of Cruz’s best attributes, but it may be another hitch for him as far as ethanol is concerned. Iowa’s Republican governor Terry Branstad and the state’s ethanol lobby have been working overtime to sink Cruz for his stance that the Renewable Fuel Standard, which provides federal subsidies to corn farmers in Iowa and elsewhere, should be phased out. A pro-RFS group called America’s Renewable Future is following the Cruz campaign bus around Iowa in an RV emblazoned with the phrase “You Cruz, You Lose.” The group is also running TV and radio ads.
The effect of the pro-ethanol campaign is that for weeks, Cruz has been honing his response. He’s asked about the issue at every stop, and uncorks a succinct explanation of his position that boils down to this: no energy producers should receive taxpayer-funded subsidies, ethanol or not. In Fenton, a young woman tested him on this. “Are you willing to help the ethanol companies, or the oil companies?” she asked.
“My simple answer is neither and both,” Cruz replied. “When it comes to getting rid of stupid regulations, I’ll help everybody. When it comes to mandates and subsidies, I ain’t helping anybody.”
Cruz seems almost to go out of his way to dispel the notion that he’s somehow against Iowa corn farmers. Earlier in the week Dave Vander Griend, a pioneer in the ethanol energy industry, joined Cruz on the stump in support, a fact Cruz mentioned at all three of his Friday stops. Cruz spent five minutes in Emmetsburg expanding on his view that he would “tear down” the federal government’s ethanol “blend wall,” which limits the amount of ethanol that can be mixed with gasoline. “I very much support ethanol,” he said. “I just oppose Washington.”
His engagement on the question suggests the attack ads from Branstad and his allies are working. Cruz advisors say the focus is actually a blessing in disguise, since it allows the senator the opportunity to explain why his position is good for corn farmers.
Maybe. It certainly tests the adage that in politics if you’re explaining, you’re losing.
