Ted Cruz: Republicans Love Him in Iowa, Loathe Him in D.C.
Gap in perception fuels Texas senator’s 2016 outsider strategy
Republican presidential candidate Sen.
Dec. 27, 2015 5:30 a.m. ET
Sen. Ted Cruz is getting rock-star treatment at his 2016 presidential-campaign events. In Iowa, the state he has visited more than any other, a recent poll found more Republicans viewed him favorably than any other GOP candidate.
Among his fellow senators, by contrast, he is one of the most disliked men in Washington. He has been called “wacko bird,” “jackass” and “false prophet.” And that came from Republicans.
The gap between his reputation in Washington and his reception among primary voters isn’t a paradox. It is central to his campaign strategy.
With the GOP electorate riddled with disdain for the political establishment, Mr. Cruz relishes his reputation as the bad boy of the Senate, where he has dragged his party into a government-shuttering budget fight and defied party leaders ever since arriving on Capitol Hill in 2013.
“When we launched our campaign, the New York Times promptly opined, ‘Cruz cannot win because the Washington elites despise him,’ ” he said in a video ad created by a super PAC supporting him. “I kinda thought that was the whole point of the campaign.”
Now that he is rising in national and state polls—including a first-place ranking in Iowa just five weeks ahead of that state’s caucuses—the Texas senator is coming under fresh scrutiny. A central question is whether voters will react with the enthusiasm of the grass-roots or the sour opinion of Senate colleagues.
The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 82% of people who identify themselves as “very conservative” view him positively. Among swing voters, only 26% had positive feelings about him.
Former Sen. Bob Dole, the GOP’s 1996 presidential nominee, said he would have a hard time bringing himself to vote for Mr. Cruz. “I might oversleep that day,” Mr. Dole said recently on MSNBC. “It would be difficult.”
Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler said senators’ hostility to Mr. Cruz had no bearing on his prospects as a presidential candidate. “They hate him in the Senate because he’s not going to assimilate into their culture,” he said. “They don’t want change, and the voters do.”
Many of his supporters say they are baffled by his reputation in Washington. On the campaign trail, they see a man greeting voters, posing for photos, joking around and mimicking movie scenes for a laugh.
“People in Iowa have been able to spend a lot of time with the senator and have found him to be a humble and engaging man who just doesn’t take himself too seriously,” said Joel Kurtinitis, a Cruz supporter in Iowa.
That description is foreign to his Republican critics in Congress. Sen. John McCain, who called Mr. Cruz and his allies “wacko birds” in 2013, bridled last summer when the Texan accused Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of lying about a legislative matter. In the context of the sedate Senate, Mr. Cruz’s criticism was like shouting a profanity in a church sanctuary.
“I think he attacked Mitch McConnell because he thought it would help him,” Mr. McCain said. “It probably did.”
Many Republicans were infuriated by Mr. Cruz’s 2013 strategy of pushing a budget fight over health-care funding into a government shutdown. It catapulted Mr. Cruz into hero status among conservatives but undercut Republicans trying to build the party’s governing bona fides. He also urged House conservatives to defy then-House Speaker John Boehner, who last year called Mr. Cruz a “jackass” at a Colorado fundraiser.
“Part of his raising of his profile, a critical part, is not that he is the most conservative and able to accomplish the most. It is that he is conservative and everyone else is not,” said Josh Holmes, a former senior adviser to Mr. McConnell. “Which is untrue, and it shows colleagues he is not really interested in their shared goals.”
Mr. Cruz has sought to make light of the rap on him as arrogant and unapproachable.
“If you want someone to grab a beer with, I may not be that guy,” Mr. Cruz said at the third GOP presidential debate, in Colorado, when asked to describe one of his weaknesses. “But if you want someone to drive you home, I will get the job done.”
The hostility of his colleagues sometimes hampers Mr. Cruz in the Senate. When he tried to offer amendments on Planned Parenthood funding and the Iran nuclear deal this fall, colleagues refused to give the procedural go-ahead that is routinely granted as a matter of courtesy.
Mr. Cruz responded with a harsh critique of his party’s leaders.
“I will give President Obama and the Senate Democrats credit,” Mr. Cruz said. “They are willing to crawl over broken glass with a knife between their teeth to fight for [their] principles. Unfortunately, leadership on my side of the aisle does not demonstrate the same commitment.”
Mr. Cruz argues that his undiluted conservatism will be more successful than the tack-to-the-center campaigns of past presidential nominees such as Messrs. Dole and McCain. When Mr. Dole endorsed Jeb Bush for president in November, he returned the swipe.
“There are a lot of good candidates—I like nearly all of them,“ Mr. Dole said in an ABC interview in November. Then he whispered, “Except Cruz.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ted-cruz-republicans-love-him-in-iowa-loathe-him-in-d-c-1451212202
