On Saturday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) defined the 21st century Republican Party by uniting an old call for Constitutionalism with a new emphasis on economic opportunity.
“For the past three weeks, we’ve been winning,” Cruz said, delivering the keynote remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference that evening. “How do we keep winning? Number one, defend the Constitution. Number two, champion growth and opportunity.”
These two goals ran through his entire speech, from his opening joke about the sequester to his closing call for solidarity. All throughout, he praised Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for his nearly 13-hour filibuster.
“Suddenly, we saw elected leaders doing something they haven’t done in a long time,” Cruz said. “Standing on principle.”
He criticized the Senators who did not ‘stand with Rand,’ saying that their manhoods had been cheapened. Cruz explained that the federal government must follow due process of law, referring to the Fifth Amendment.
Cruz attacked the Democrats for failing to defend the Constitution.
“This past week, a senior Democrat explained to me that questions about the Constitution have no place in the U.S. Senate,” he told the crowd.
While Cruz and Paul both criticized Bush for detaining citizens without cause, Democrats did not join Paul’s filibuster.
“Where were the Democrats when Rand an the rest of us were standing on the floor on drones?”Cruz asked
On the issue of economic growth, Cruz dubbed the Obama years “the Great Stagnation,” echoing the end of the Carter years, known as the “Great Stagflation.” He noted that Reagan turned things around, despite facing a tough economy just like Obama did. Current economic growth averages at .8 percent for the last five years, as it did from 1979 to 1983.
“I’ve been championing opportunity conservatism,” Cruz explained, arguing for “easing the assent up the economic ladder.”
To achieve this, he mentioned nine policies.
“We need to repeal Obamacare,” he said. “We need to repeal Dodd-Frank. We need to eliminate corporate welfare. We need to build the Keystone Pipeline.”
He also argued for reigning in the Environmental Protection Agency, auditing the Federal Reserve, abolishing the U.S. Department of Education and championing school choice. He echoed other Republicans in calling school choice next the Civil Rights issue.
On foreign policy, Cruz called for solidarity with Israel and condemned President Obama’s funding of potentially hostile foreign nations.
“Last week, President Obama cancelled White House tours and sent $250 million to Egypt,” he said, ridiculing Obama’s hypocrisy.
Drawing his keynote to a close, Cruz honored his father, saying, “If you told my father, washing dishes, that one day his son would be sworn in as a United States Senator representing the great state of Texas, that would have been unimaginable.”
That sort of opportunity — the rise from blue-collar father to Senatorial son — encapsulates Cruz’s view of the American Dream.
“That, my dear friends, is change you can believe in.”
