credit Greg Nash
Posted on 02/15/2014 4:42:27 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
credit Greg Nash
Conservatives in Iowa and New Hampshire are preparing a hero’s welcome for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) after he showed up Senate Republican leaders during a crucial vote on the debt limit.
Cruz infuriated his Senate Republican colleagues this week when he filibustered a clean bill to raise the debt limit. His objection forced Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and 11 other Republicans to vote with Democrats to advance the legislation.
But in Iowa and New Hampshire, two important presidential primary states, conservative activists are cheering Cruz’s stand and buzzing about a possible presidential run in 2016.
Activists in the two states said they plan to show Cruz their appreciation when he visits in March and April.
“A tickertape parade,” said Steve Deace, a conservative radio host based in Iowa when asked what kind of reception Cruz will receive from activists next month.
“At this point with grassroots conservatives around the country it’s a close vote between who they distrust the most, the president, [Speaker] John Boehner [R-Ohio] or Mitch McConnell,” he said.
Ann Ray Trimble, a conservative activist in Iowa, said she and her allies are thrilled that Cruz took on his colleagues.
“It plays very well because the rank-and-file conservative in Iowa is a law-and-order person who believes, as Sen. Cruz stated in his objection, that the rules are the rules, the laws are the laws, and we need to follow them and not break them for political expediency.”
Cruz will speak on March 18 at a homeschooling rally hosted by the Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators in Des Moines.
On April 12, he will attend the New Hampshire Freedom Summit, an event sponsored by Americans For Prosperity, a Tea Party-allied group, along with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, two other potential candidates for president in 2016.
Greg Moore, the state director of Americans for Prosperity-New Hampshire, said conservative activists who will gather at the rally applauded Cruz’s action and want to see more transparency in Washington.
“They want to see people take a stand one way or the other. ‘Where do you stand on spending? How serious are you about spending?’ Fiscal issues are huge in New Hampshire,” said Moore.
“Our activists want to see a great deal of accountability,” he added. “They would look at any opportunity bringing accountability as positive for Sen. Cruz.”
Cruz’s Republican colleagues, however, did not appreciate his filibuster. They held a tense and angry meeting Wednesday afternoon at which McConnell proposed waiving the 60-vote threshold normally required to advance legislation, according to sources familiar with the session.
Cruz stood up and declared he would not let his fellow Republicans to escape responsibility for advancing the debt-limit bill. He said he would force at least five Republicans to vote with Democrats to overcome the procedural hurdle.
A Senate Republican aide described the meeting as “very contentious.”
Cruz further inflamed his colleagues by accusing them of trying to mislead the public after the vote.
“In the 13 months I’ve been in the Senate it has become apparent to me the single thing that Republican politicians hate and fear the most … is when they’re forced to tell the truth. It makes their heads explode,” Cruz told conservative radio host Mark Levin. “The Republicans members of the Senate, they all wanted the perfect show vote.”
“They should be totally pissed at him,” said Fergus Cullen, the former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, when asked about the reaction of Cruz’s colleagues. “For him to do this after being in the Senate for one year, he’s obviously not preparing himself for a long career in the Senate.”
Cullen acknowledged that Cruz’s tactics would likely win over conservative activists but questioned whether he has come to be viewed by centrists as too far to the right.
“I do think objectively it probably plays pretty well to the base,” he said.
“What’s your long-term aim?” Cullen added. “Are you interested in getting elected nationally? All you’re doing right now is setting up a political career that will hit its ceiling very quickly, and it’s a pretty low ceiling.”
If Cruz were to win the GOP nomination in 2016, he would need resounding support from the party’s most conservative voters. He could face stiff competition from Paul and perhaps Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008.
Chip Saltsman, a Republican strategist who managed Huckabee’s 2008 presidential campaign, predicted Cruz would have a difficult challenge trying to explain his procedural moves in the Senate to voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.
“At the end of the day Ted Cruz made McConnell have a 60-vote limit and the debt ceiling still passed. It’s not like he stopped the debt limit from being passed,” he said.
Cruz’s procedural tactics have angered his GOP colleagues throughout his short Senate career. They blasted him for waging a high-profile fight in the fall to link a government funding resolution to an effort to halt the implementation of ObamaCare.
He irked some of them in early 2013 by insisting, along with fellow Tea Party-allied conservatives, on a 60-vote threshold to proceed to a debate on gun control legislation.
Gun-rights advocates later credited Cruz for helping to defeat expanded background checks because the procedural vote offered a useful map of which Republicans might have been sympathetic to the Democratic reform proposal.
Walker is too geeky. He missed out on a great opportunity after beating the recall last June-the last week of school. Since it was the teachers unions that were so against him he should have shouted-a la John Belushi-”FOOD FIGHT!
But wouldn’t the dems block anything any republican proposed?
Anyway gridlock is good. Less damage done that way.
Romney is just the same. He lost-ok? We learned nothing. In his concession speech he could have said to America’s young: “Good luck finding a job.”
My feeling is that experience has very little to do with getting elected. Most voters, and I would venture a predominance of those who vote for Democrats, do not vote on experience but on emotion. In other words, experience has nothing to do with it. That is not as I would have it but as I see it.
John F. Kennedy had little experience any was elected over the more experienced Richard Nixon. Jerry Ford had far more experience than a governor, Jimmy Carter, but he lost to the upstart. No one had more experience in his resume in recent memory than George HW Bush but he lost to a governor with a dubious past and even more dubious present.
As it is, not how it should be, the price goes to the charismatic, to the "cool" candidate, the one who can capture the emotion and build momentum. Ted Cruz clearly has that ability. If one listens to his appearance the other day on Mark Levin's reply one cannot help but be impressed with the man's eloquence and, yes, his charisma. I have yet to hear him put a foot down wrong.
Governor Walker has a demonstrated character of courage in the face of unrelenting assault and and adherence to conservative principles which gives one confidence in his integrity as well as his ability.
The question is, do you favor a man who has potential to sweep the country into a new era, Ted Cruz, or do you favor a man who was demonstrated a clear capacity to revolutionize and revitalize a state and save it from liberal self-destruction?
Full disclosure, I favor Ted Cruz but I would not be in the least bit unhappy if Walker were our next president. Let the best man win.
“Cruz infuriated his Senate Republican colleagues this week when he filibustered a clean bill to raise the debt limit. His objection forced Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and 11 other Republicans to vote with Democrats to advance the legislation.”
Who were the other 11 republicans who voted with herr reid?
We don't need more laws, we need fewer laws.
Barrasso (R-WY)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Flake (R-AZ)
Hatch (R-UT)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kirk (R-IL)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Thune (R-SD)
Not voting:
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
“They held a tense and angry meeting Wednesday afternoon at which McConnell proposed waiving the 60-vote threshold normally required to advance legislation, according to sources familiar with the session.”
That tells you everything you need to know about McConnell. Doing the Dhimms’ dirty work behind closed doors and then running ads in Kentucky saying that he’s a conservative. This guy is a slime ball.
I see the campaign for President has begun.
The Establishment trolls have already begun posting on Free Republic.
I can't believe they're still parading Karl Rove wannabe Saltsman out to parrot the Party Boy Establishment line. These guys’ times have passed but they won't admit and still want to haul in their ill-gotten gain.
Compromise is highly over-rated. During Reagan's second term the dems took back the senate and began destroying all the good Reagan had done with a vengeance. Reagan's administration still holds the record for the most indictments and convictions for various offenses, many on the Iran Contra witch hunt.
“The guy has not had a single thing get through the House, Senate and signed into law.”
If that is our yardstick, why not nominate McCain again? He’s gotten a lot of things passed.
Or should we be concerned about getting the RIGHT things passed? And continue saying NO to unconstitutional spending and amnesty, even if the rest of the Republican Senate salons want to continue their Big Government binge?
um... how is a REAL conservative to achieve a result with a Senate controlled by Democrats and a Democrat president?
I guess depending on what you call an “accomplishment” IF we gain control of the Senate in the fall, I am sure Cruz will accomplish a lot... that will then be veto’d by Obama. At which point you will then still accuse him of accomplishing nothing.
He is one man standing up against a tidal wave of socialists. Give him the credit he deserves.
I am 100% sure if he had “compromised” to ... “achieve” something, you would be the first here to label him a RINO traitor!
um... how is a REAL conservative to achieve a result with a Senate controlled by Democrats and a Democrat president?
Reagan managed as Governor and President. He had a Demcratic Senate and House for both state and federal. If you are a real conservative you can get things done, when you aren’t like Cruz, you can talk all day about it.
Oh definitely. It makes no difference in that respect who gets elected in 2016. If it's a Republican then the Dems will filibuster everything they propose. If it's a Democrat then the GOP will do the same.
Even if the GOP gains control next year, I don't see Cruz being able to accomplish much. The Democrats will filibuster anything he tries and there will still be about 10% to 15% of the Republicans who hate him enough to not support him.
The Democrats that Reagan dealt with were far less radical than the ones who exist today. Not saying they were conservatives but you did have a bunch of blue dogs especially from the south who played a big part in passing Reagan’s tax cuts in the eighties. Bush was far more liberal than many of us want to admit so he found common ground with many Democrats especially on things like immigration and government preschool funding. Today’s Democratic Party is an absolute joke but they’re facing a gutless GOP that won’t call them out for what they truly are, an American socialist party, and the media has their back by portraying them as a bunch of centrists to fool the mass of low education dupes. Cruz may not have the national experience you desire but he’s the only one in DC willing to take on the left and not back down and make side deals with them. You want him to find common ground with radicals like Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, and hell every other Democratic senator? This is why Cruz appeals to so many of us. He’s fed up with the left, tired of the spineless RINOS making deals with them, and he’s taking them on mostly by himself. Isn’t that enough of a leader for you, or do you prefer a dealmaker who rolls over for the left like Christie or Jeb Bush as the GOP standard bearer? We’ve gone down that road too many times and look what we’ve done to this country as a result.
Every single phrase these "journalists" write is just dripping with spin and prejudice.
A “hero’s welcome” does not translate into caucus and primary votes in liberal IA and NH.
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