Ted Cruz announced that he is running for President in 2016. To date, he is the only Republican or Democrat who has announced his campaign. Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, Elizabeth Warren, and Hillary Clinton have sent a lot of messages but Cruz is running for President.
This is a great thing for a Republican in the November 2016 Presidential campaign. Here are five reasons why:
1. Ted Cruz mobilizes a disaffected base of the Republican electorate. Ted Cruz is an unabashed conservative. He is a constitutionalist, a populist, a social conservative, and strong on national defense. More importantly, he is a gifted orator, has a brilliant mind, and communicates the “Reagan Revolution” to the next generation of Republicans (the under 40 crowd).
2. The progressives hate him so much that they’ll expose their bigotry. It’s already started. While calling Ted Cruz “uppity” might appear to be a racial slur (Ted Cruz is Hispanic), the real reason the Big Government crowd hates Cruz is because they perceive him to be a traitor. Progressives are collectivists so they think of people as members of a “group.” Ted Cruz is Hispanic. Ted Cruz is an Ivy-League-educated lawyer. Ted Cruz is supposed to be “one of them”– the disenfranchised but educated elite who make policy for us mere mortals. But Ted Cruz is a constitutionalist — he values individual liberty, limited government, and opposes crony capitalism (aka fascism). The fascist-minded progressives hate him because he betrayed the groupthink they cherish so much.
3. Ted Cruz is going to talk about bold ideas. He wants to repeal Obamacare, abolish the IRS, defend the pre-born human beings, uphold the Sacrament of marriage, and defend the Second Amendment. While most Republicans might individually disagree on one or two of those issues, Ted Cruz is a Republican platform candidate, fighting to promote the platform when few will.
4. Ted Cruz will take on the Republican Party bosses. Cruz’ career has been opposing the Republican Senate leadership as much as he’s opposed the Democratic Senate leadership. Republican Senator John McCain has called him a “whacko bird” and Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid called him a “schoolyard bully.” Cruz has a history of shaking up the D.C. establishment in his four short years as a US Senator. Republicans voters are increasingly disappointed in Republicans’ acquiescence to the Obama agenda and furious in their abdication of their constitutional duty to confront an overreaching Executive Branch. Cruz gives them hope that the Constitution still matters.
5. Ted Cruz can win. 36 years ago, a former Republican President (who hadn’t won a national campaign) said, “It would be an impossible situation. Reagan is perceived as the most conservative Republican. A most conservative Republican can’t win in a national election.” Moderate Republicans are always encouraged (by the media) to talk about “electability” because it alienates conservative voters. The tea party movement taught (most) establishment Republicans that there could be hell to pay if they start trash talking the more conservative Republicans. Expect them to keep their mouths shut and criticize Cruz on his policy ideas rather than his “electability.”
I personally support Rand Paul for President but I love Ted Cruz. I don’t agree with everything he advances, does, and proposes but Cruz is a constitutionalist, a far cry from the establishment sell-outs the GOP has given us these past twenty years. I’ll #StandWithRand in June of next year but Cruz is going to drag the conversation back to where it belongs; talking about a federal government which has trampled on the US Constitution.
We’re going to talk about ideas in the 2016 election, conservative ideas. That’s a great thing for the Republican Party.