Ted Cruz is staking his bid for the presidency on a record of near-achievements and legislative impasses — and he is confident Republican voters will buy what he’s selling.
At his speech Monday announcing his candidacy for president, Cruz praised “courageous conservatives” unafraid to take on Washington and the president on principle and at any cost, and counted himself among them.
“Over and over again, when we faced impossible odds, the American people rose to the challenge,” Cruz said. “You know, compared to that, repealing Obamacare and abolishing the IRS ain’t all that tough.”
That doesn’t make those goals plausible, however, and Cruz should know: He was famously unsuccessful at blocking funding for Obamacare in Congress.
Cruz will run for president on a platform encompassing that and other legislative failures, including also his sunk attempt to stop the president’s executive action on immigration, and his unwillingness to raise the debt ceiling, which led to a government shutdown. For all the fights Cruz has started in Congress, he hasn’t won a major one yet.
But Cruz’s spokesman Rick Tyler said the senator’s losing battles won’t be a negative for voters.
“The opposite,” Tyler said.
“Cruz is one voice in a Congress full of timid people who focus on what can’t be done,” he continued. “Voters gave the Congress a mandate last November to get things done. Now people are asking why is Cruz the only one willing to lead. Cruz is focusing on what should and can be done.”
“It’s about doing the right thing,” Tyler added. “It’s about leadership.”
Cruz’s style has proven to be polarizing, and a Gallup poll earlier this month showed him with higher unfavorable ratings nationally, at 28 percent, than favorable, at 22 percent. Meanwhile, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll this month showed that many Republicans have already made up their minds about Cruz, for the worse: 38 percent said they could not see themselves voting for him, and only 40 percent said they could.
But being widely known as an ideological stalwart also has its perks in a Republican primary — in particular in more conservative states like Iowa and South Carolina, where in 2012 Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, respectively, beat out Mitt Romney.
That’s why, on his newly-minted campaign website, Cruz plays up some of his losing battles, including “(setting) an early, high standard for meaningful Republican opposition to increasing the debt ceiling,” or having “led the fight to defund Obamacare.” Indeed, the word “fight” appears often.
There might be a hitch in Cruz’s plan, however, should a conservative candidate with tangible accomplishments come along. Doug Gross, a plugged-in Iowa Republican operative who chaired Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign there, pointed to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, whose triumphant fight against unions in Wisconsin is central to his bid for president.
“Walker is an interesting figure because he’s not only fought the principled fight, he’s won it,” Gross said. “So, up against Scott Walker, that is a problem for Ted Cruz.”
