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I'll try to do better. Ron as my witness.

Wah...

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Ted Cruz on solid financial ground despite alleged GOP punishment for budget shutdown

Bloomberg


WASHINGTON — Two weeks ago, Sen. Ted Cruz asserted that Republican leaders choked off his supply of campaign money 18 months ago as punishment for his role in the 16-day government shutdown.

He’s bounced back.

In his first eight days as a presidential candidate, Cruz raked in $4 million, mostly from low-dollar donors eager to propel his tea party-friendly bid. And it turned out that was a mere pittance compared with the $31 million rounded up last week by a small — and still shadowy — set of wealthy benefactors for a new quartet of pro-Cruz political committees known as super PACs.

Cruz can’t use that money to hire his own staff in Iowa or air his own ads in South Carolina. Direct coordination isn’t allowed. But these benefactors, most of whom won’t be identified before July, can stretch whatever direct donations Cruz pulls in by serving up polls, ads, opposition research and more.

So, sorry, Rick Perry and Rand Paul. This is no shoestring insurgency fueled solely by grassroots, Gadsden flag-waving fans. Cruz may never keep pace with Jeb Bush, who can tap the ultimate network of GOP money men. But despite the GOP establishment’s disdain, Cruz will have plenty of money to remain viable well into the early contests of 2016.

That’s a far cry from the woe-is-me message Cruz was putting out just two weeks ago.

Days after he launched his campaign, Cruz underscored his role as a Washington outsider by telling a crowd in New Hampshire that Senate GOP leaders had punished him after the October 2013 shutdown by pressuring donors to cut him off.

“In 2013, we got quite a bit of money from D.C. PACs,” he said, and when the fight over Obamacare led to the shutdown, “that dropped to almost zero. It was leadership.”

He declined to point fingers at anyone in particular — not his fellow Texan, deputy GOP leader John Cornyn, nor Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, now the majority leader. But Cruz insisted that he and his wingman in the shutdown fight, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, felt the sting.

“We had multiple reports from the D.C. community that they had been told in no uncertain terms, do not write a check to these guys. It’s how leadership disciplines people,” Cruz asserted.

The friction between Cruz and GOP leadership is mutual and well-known. The shutdown was a low point. Cruz prodded House conservatives to force the showdown in a bid to remove funding for the health care law. GOP leaders in the House and Senate viewed the strategy as counterproductive, futile and dangerous. So did most GOP senators and many others.

“You have to appreciate the irony that someone who routinely trashes the ‘D.C. establishment’ is now complaining that they’re not giving him enough money,” said GOP strategist Brian Walsh, communications director for several years at the Republican Senate campaign group. “The reality is that when you play Russian roulette with the economy by blocking the government from paying its bills, you shouldn’t be surprised when the business community in this country stops taking you seriously.”

In fall 2013, Cruz’s next Senate race was five years away. So it’s unclear how much pain he would really endure if PAC donations dried up. In any case, it’s hard to spot a dramatic drop-off in his campaign and political action committees disclosure reports.

Cruz has raised an anemic $51,000 from D.C.-area PACs since the shutdown. But he was never much of a PAC powerhouse. In the six months before the shutdown, he collected just $101,500 from such groups, and whatever he lost, he easily made up through appeals linked to his Green Eggs and Ham 21-hour anti-Obamacare talkathon on the Senate floor.

Well over $220,000 poured in the week after that.

The business community, and its PACs, were less excited about the brinkmanship, no prodding required from McConnell.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce gave Cruz a 63 percent rating for 2013, based in part on his vote against the deal that ended the shutdown. The Chamber sets 70 percent as a minimum to earn its support.

“We expressed our dissatisfaction with the shutdown, and made it clear why we thought that was a very bad strategy,” said spokeswoman Blair Latoff.

Lee doesn’t back up Cruz’s contention that party leaders tried to dry up his funds.

“I’m not aware of any conspiracy to shut us out of anything,” he told reporters Friday.

But for Cruz, this is all a badge of honor. He can proclaim himself the Washington outsider. And laugh all the way to the bank.

Ted Cruz Welcomes Marco Rubio to 2016 Primaries
BY: KEVIN DERBY | Posted: April 13, 2015 1:16 PM
Republican presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, offered kind words for U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., as the senator from Florida enters the primaries.
"Marco is a friend and colleague whom I greatly respect,” Cruz said on Monday. “We're both the sons of immigrants who escaped Cuba to build a better life in the United States, and we share a deep appreciation and understanding of what it means to work hard and achieve the American Dream. Marco is a talented communicator and part of a new generation of Republicans stepping forward to promote conservative solutions to our pressing challenges. He is a strong addition to the Republican field, and he will undoubtedly elevate the debate for all of us."
Rubio is expected to launch his presidential bid on Monday night at an event at the Freedom Tower in Miami.

Rubio is running........ still like Cruz better.

Guns in U.S. are “ultimate check against government tyranny”: Cruz

The right to gun ownership in America is not just about hunting, or protecting property and person, but “the ultimate check against government tyranny,” argues a fund appeal from Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

The Cruz fund raising letter echoes arguments made by militia groups, and a far-right demonstration last winter that followed voter passage of an initiative requiring criminal background checks for gun purchasers.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks at a rally in front of the WWII Memorial Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013 in Washington as Senate leaders have taken the helm in the search for a deal to end the partial government shutdown and avert a federal default. The memorial has been closed due to the government shutdown. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas: Guns owned by Americans are “the ultimate check against government tyranny — for the protection of liberty,” argues the White House hopeful. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

“The Second Amendment to the Constitution isn’t just for protecting hunting rights, and it’s not only to safeguard your right to target practice,” said Cruz, a former Texas solicitor general.

“It is a Constitutional right to protect your children, your family, your home, our lives and to serve as the ultimate check against government tyranny — for the protection of liberty.”

The argument was immediately challenged — and lampooned — by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, another possible GOP candidate.

“Well, we tried that once in South Carolina: I wouldn’t go down that road again,” Graham told reporters in Washington, D.C.

Graham was referring to South Carolina as the first state to secede from the Union after Abraham Lincoln was elected President, and site of the first shots fired in the Civil War.

“I think an informed electorate is probably a better check than, you know, guns in the street,” Graham added.

Verbal shots fired by the two Republican White House hopefuls illustrate the direction taken by their party in recent years.

Graham was considered a conservative insurrectionist when he was elected to Congress as part of the GOP sweep in 1994. He is now a Senate insider. Cruz, elected in 2012, is far to his right and is already responsible for one partial shutdown of the federal government.

Graham argued that Republicans have a political target on which to take aim.

“I’m not looking for an insurrection,” he said. “I’m looking to defeat Hillary. We’re not going to out-gun her . . . I think in a democracy the best check on government is voter participation. I think the First Amendment probably protects us more.”

But Cruz is hoping to corral a key constituency among Republican voters and caucus-goers who will choose their party’s 2016 presidential nominee.

“I am the only candidate running for President who not only believes in the Constitutional right to keep and bear arms — but has the record of fighting for it, tooth and nail.”

He has competition. Ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida sen. Marco Rubio spoke at the just-completed National Rifle Association convention.

linsey graham can eat [bleep] and die. Well said Mr. Cruz.

You said it Brother!

He is just a tad better than harry,that Gram fella.

Ted Cruz Facebook Interactions More Than Double Those of Jeb Bush Nationally

Apr 26, 2015, 2:54 PM ET

Interactions on the social platform Facebook related to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas more than doubled those of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush during a period measured earlier this month according to data -- which is approximate -- provided to ABC News by Facebook.

5 Stories You'll Care About in Politics This Week
Facebook, which measured the data from April 17 to April 23, reported 2.2 million interactions related to Cruz and about 1 million interactions related to Bush.

Facebook defines "interactions" on the social platform as posts, comments, likes and shares.

Bush is exploring a run for the White House while Cruz has officially declared his candidacy for the 2016 presidential race.

Interactions related to Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul were 1.8 million and 1.3 million for Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.

For Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Facebook reported 1.1 million interactions.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ted-...le-jeb-bush-nationally/story?id=30594301

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

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Hardly a day after Sen. Ted Cruz called out the left’s “liberal fascism,” he ended up the target of that very thing.

According to CNN, Sen. Ted Cruz argued Saturday that Democrats have become so extreme and “intolerant” of religious views that “there is no room for Christians in today’s Democratic Party.”

“There is a liberal fascism that is dedicated to going after believing Christians who follow the biblical teaching on marriage,” the Texas Republican said in his speech before a Christian conservative audience in Waukee, Iowa.

By Monday, here are the words of a gay hotelier who had the audacity to exercise his right to free association with Cruz—whose crime was disagreeing with the left on gay marriage. For co-hosting an event for Cruz, the man was attacked and forced to denounce him.

"I am shaken to my bones by the e-mails, texts, postings and phone calls of the past few days. I made a terrible mistake. I was ignorant, naive and much too quick in accepting a request to co-host a dinner with Cruz at my home without taking the time to completely understand all of his positions on gay rights. I’ve spent the past 24 hours reviewing videos of Cruz’ statements on gay marriage and I am shocked and angry. I sincerely apologize for hurting the gay community and so many of our friends, family, allies, customers and employees. I will try my best to make up for my poor judgement. Again, I am deeply sorry."

This led to a media feeding frenzy, with few if any pointing out the intolerant nature of today’s left, including the gay community that claims to be all about tolerance… as long as you agree with them:

New York Times: Gay Businessman Who Hosted Ted Cruz Event Apologizes

Bloomberg Business: Gay Hotelier Apologizes for Letting Ted Cruz Into His Home, as Cruz Decries ‘Liberal Fascism’

Business Insider: Gay hotel owners ‘deeply sorry’ for hosting Ted Cruz event

OnPolitics: Gay hotel owners apologize for hosting Ted Cruz event

Yahoo Politics: Gay businessmen apologize for co-hosting Ted Cruz event

The Daily Caller: Gay Hotelier Apologizes For The Sin Of Hosting Ted Cruz At His Home

Talking Points Memo: Gay Hotelier Apologizes for Hosting Cruz Event

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Wednesday blamed President Barack Obama for the racial tensions and unrest unrolling across the U.S., including the current turmoil in Baltimore, Maryland.

"President Obama, when he was elected, he could have been a unifying leader," Cruz lamented in a question and answer session hosted by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Instead, the presidential candidate argued, Obama "has made decisions that I think have inflamed racial tensions, that have divided us rather than bringing us tougher."

As evidence of Obama's poor record on the matter, Cruz pointed to vice president Joe Biden's comments during the 2012 campaign, in which Biden claimed Republicans would put African-Americans "back in chains." Pressed by reporters at the Chamber of Commerce event to name a specific case where the president inflamed racial tensions, Cruz cited the 2009 "beer summit," in which Obama invited black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. to have a beer at the White House with white police Sgt. James Crowley, who had arrested Gates at his home.

Obama "has not used his role as president to bring us together," Cruz said. "He has exacerbated racial misunderstandings."

The conservative firebrand also accused Obama of "building a straw man of the opposition to vilify and caricature" the Republican Party.

Cruz said that the death of Freddie Gray, an unarmed black man who died from a spinal injury while in the custody of Baltimore police, needed to be properly investigated. But he argued that portraying law enforcement officers in a negative light did a disservice to minorities.

"The vilification of law enforcement has been fundamentally wrong and it has hurt the minority community," Cruz said.

Ted Cruz ‘hitting on a lot of cylinders’ in presidential campaign
Republican insiders say rollout exceptional


By Seth McLaughlin - The Washington Times - Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Sen. Ted Cruz’s month-old presidential campaign has won strong reviews from GOP insiders in key states who say he’s managed to tap into the anti-establishment sentiment of primary voters, and his allies have proved they have the ability to raise tens of millions of dollars to boost his bid.

The Texan’s presidential aspirations hinge on his ability to lay claim to being the chief conservative alternative in the race, which means he’ll have to find a way to expand beyond the tea party and social conservative base that he begins with.

“He is expanding his base, and he is right now hitting on a lot of cylinders and I think the mechanics of the campaign have done well,” said Dave Carney, a GOP operative in New Hampshire. “My advice is: do not underestimate him. He is a serious, serious, guy and the more the nation’s elites make fun of him, the stronger he will be. Everyone ignores him at their own peril.”

Robert Vander Plaats, head of The Family Leader, an Iowa-based Chritstian group, said Mr. Cruz’s rollout has been “exceptional.”

“I am one of these who believes if the caucuses were held today, Cruz would definitely compete for winning it,” Mr. Vander Plaats said. “I think he is really being rewarded for his bold leadership in the Senate, and his willingness to expose both sides of the aisle — not just the Democrats.”

Mr. Cruz’s outreach continued Wednesday with an appearance at a forum in Washington hosted by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, where the freshman senator called for lower taxes and a more aggressive U.S. posture on the world stage. He said he plans to make the presidential election a referendum on abolishing the IRS and pushing for a flat tax.



He also dismissed the notion that 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s hardline “self-deportation” stance on illegal immigration cost him with Hispanic voters, instead blaming Mr. Romney’s infamous remark that he wasn’t trying to win the “47 percent” of voters who were on the government dole and wouldn’t vote for him anyway.

“I cannot think of a statement in all of politics that I disagree with more strongly,” Mr. Cruz said. “I think Republicans are and should be the party of the 47 percent.”

He also accused President Obama of inflaming racial tensions, suggesting the Democrat deserves some blame for the riots in nearby Baltimore, and said that he has never seen a Hispanic panhandler.

Mr. Cruz kicked off the presidential contest with his official entry into the race last month in a speech at Liberty University in Virginia.

Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida have since announced bids, and former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson are expected to enter the GOP race next week.

On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has declared her candidacy.

Mr. Cruz, who is running in the middle of the pack in polls testing GOP candidates, has butted heads with both parties on Capitol Hill, and grabbed attention in 2013 when he led an effort to defund Obamacare that led to a 16-day partial government shutdown, which some Republicans said tarnished the party’s image.

But Republican insiders in Iowa and New Hampshire — which host the first two nomination contests — say Mr. Cruz is trying to shed his fringe image and broaden his appeal among primary voters.

Mr. Carney, who is sitting out the GOP presidential race after being a longtime advisor to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, said Mr. Cruz is resonating with voters who are surprised that he does not fit the way he has been portrayed in the media or by the establishment wing of the party.

“His expectations are such that the elite and the political insiders discount him and that actually is a huge benefit for him in this environment because he comes out and makes a presentation and people go, ‘Wow.’ That is not that they expected,” Mr. Carney said.

Several news outlets reported this month that pro-Cruz Super PACs were on pace to raise $31 million in a matter of weeks, helping to counter worries that he would struggle to raise the money to compete with establishment candidates.

That’s always been a hurdle for conservative candidates, who have faced a danger of getting chased from the campaign because of lack of funds.

“I don’t know that there were doubts that he could raise that money, but I think it is refreshing to conservatives that he can raise that money,” Mr. Vander Plaats said. “If you recall in ‘08, we launched Huckabee [out of Iowa], but Huckabee did not have a whole lot of money. Then we got behind Santorum, and then he would win 11 states but he did not always have enough money to compete.”

FYI...me and Ted is layin' back...makin' a few bucks and waiting for the smoke to clear from all these flashes in the pan.

Ted Cruz says he’s the ‘proven conservative’ in 2016 GOP field

May 18, 2015

The third Republican presidential aspirant to address the Georgia GOP crowd at its convention was Sen. Ted Cruz. (See my previous write-ups on Chris Christie and Marco Rubio.) While one could hardly mistake Cruz for anything other than a Texan, right down to the cowboy boots he wore with his suit, and he described Georgians as having a lot in common with the people of the Lone Star State, Cruz channeled Missouri’s Show Me State mentality in explaining how he would stand out from other primary candidates who have similar messages.

“Everyone’s going to say they’re super-duper conservative,” he said in a Friday afternoon interview that served as a Reader’s Digest version of his speech to convention delegates that evening. “I think the Republican primary’s going to come down to one word, and that’s trust. Far too many of us have been burned by politicians who sound great on the campaign trail, and then they go to Washington and they don’t do what they say. And I think what’s going to be the central distinction in this race is primary voters are going to say don’t tell me, show me.

“If you say you oppose Obamacare, show me where you’ve stood up and fought to stop it. If you say you oppose President Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty, show me where you’ve stood up and fought to stop it. If you say you oppose the debt ceiling that’s bankrupting our kids and grandkids; if you say you support the First Amendment, free speech, religious liberty, or the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, or privacy, or the Tenth Amendment; if you say you oppose Common Core — show me where you’ve stood and fought for those principles. If you say you support life or marriage, if you say you support Israel, if you say you oppose Iran getting nuclear weapons, show me where you’ve stood and led the fight.”

Cruz, of course, has famously angered a lot of Beltway insiders with his various attempts to do those things, most notably the government shutdown of October 2013 as a new fiscal year and Obamacare’s open enrollment were to begin. At dinner, he joked, “The New York Times says Cruz cannot win because Washington elites despise him. I kind of thought that was the point of this whole (campaign).” In the interview beforehand, Cruz suggested those things he’s done to alienate Washington elites are the very things that endear him to the rest of the country.

“I think the reason we’re seeing such incredible enthusiasm is people are fed up with politicians who blow smoke, and they’re looking for someone who’s going to tell ’em the truth, and who will do what he says,” Cruz argued, adding: “The principles I’ve fought for in the Senate are live within your means, don’t bankrupt our kids and grandkids, follow the Constitution. It’s only in Washington, D.C., that those are considered extreme views; in most of America, that’s basic common sense.”

Cruz also invoked Ronald Reagan’s famous call for “bold colors, not pale pastels.”

“If we nominate another candidate in the mold of a Bob Dole or a John McCain or a Mitt Romney — all three of those are good, honorable, decent men, but what they did didn’t work,” he said. “And if we do it again, the same voters who stayed home in ’08 and ’12 will stay home in ’16, and Hillary Clinton’s the next president.”

“That man betokens such a level of ignorance and a direct falsification of the existing scientific data. It's shocking and I think that man has rendered himself absolutely unfit to be running for office."

Gov. Jerry Brown

TedCruz.org.
It is time.

It most certainly is. Cruz/Walker '16

Ted Cruz Raises $1 Million in First 100 Hours After Debate






FRANKLIN, TN–Speaking to a standing-room-only crowd, Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced that he has raised more than one million dollars in the first 100 hours after last Thursday’s GOP Presidential candidate debate on Fox News.
The debate, marked by a notable dust-up between front runner Donald Trump and Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly, drew record ratings–over 24 million watched.

“I’ll announce something here for the first time,” Cruz told the cheering audience. “In the one hundred hours that followed the debate, our campaign raised over one million dollars,” he added to even louder cheers.

In a statement issued by the campaign shortly after that announcement in Franklin, the Cruz campaign noted that the $1,092,157 raised “in the 100 hours since the first debate” came from over 10,000 contributions. “Online contributions averaged $54.77. Our webpage had 295,911 page views. Our posts on Facebook generated 20,457,661 impressions. Our tweets generated 12,332,304 impressions,” the statement said.

“All of this coincides,” the statement read, “with NBC releasing a poll this weekend showing a national outpouring of support with Cruz surging to second place overall with 13 percent nationwide.”

“Cruz has been engaged in a bus tour across the so-called ‘SEC primary’ states [since the debate],” the statement continued. “From South Carolina to Georgia to Alabama to Tennessee (and on to Mississippi and Arkansas and Oklahoma), every event has been standing room only – with hundreds or thousands coming out to support the campaign,” the statement concluded.

Steady as she goes

Cruz, Trump to hold anti-Iran deal rally in D.C.

Though they’re rivals on the campaign trail, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are teaming up for a joint attack on President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
The Texas GOP senator’s campaign announced Thursday that he’s invited Trump to join a rally planned at the Capitol soon to pressure lawmakers on opposing the nuclear agreement. The rally is sponsored by Tea Party Patriots, Center for Security Policy, and the Zionist Organization of America.
“We are thankful for all their hard work on this effort and will have more details on time, date, and location as they are finalized,” the Cruz campaign said.
Trump hinted that an event was coming earlier Thursday, telling supporters at a campaign event in South Carolina: “I think we’re going to do something next week or the week after about the Iran pact” in Washington.
“We’re going to have a tremendous crowd come out,” Trump promised.

Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, said the rally is tentatively slated for Sept. 9. He said he welcomed Trump’s involvement and the attention he would bring to the Iran agreement’s opposition.
“Anybody who’s in public life and opposed to the deal, it’s useful to have them speak out and oppose this catastrophe,” Klein said. “It’s not a bad deal, it’s a catastrophe. Every American should be freaking out about arming and funding the Hitler of the day.”

John Boehner Calls Ted Cruz A ‘Jackass’ At Fundraiser


Speaker of the House John Boehner stunned audience members Wednesday evening at a Colorado fundraiser by referring to Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz as a “jackass,” two people in attendance tell The Daily Caller.

At a Steamboat Springs event for GOP Rep. Scott Tipton, the Ohio Republican quipped that he likes how Cruz’s presidential campaign keeps “that jackass” out of Washington, and from telling Boehner how to do his job.

That remark rubbed some attendees the wrong way.

“I don’t think it’s terribly speaker-like, and I think it kind of goes against everything that Reagan ever said about disparaging Republicans,” said Ed MacArthur, the president of Native Excavating, who attended the fundraiser.

“It’s becoming very disturbing to me that we can’t have good, polite conversation,” MacArthur said. “It all has to be at the throat.”

But MacArthur added: “I do believe he’s got the right to say it.”

Another Steamboat Springs resident confirmed Boehner’s remark: “I about fell on the floor.”

“To build coalitions to work together in Washington, D.C., you don’t start it out by calling your colleague a ‘jackass,'” she said.


The fundraiser took place at a tavern-styled venue called the Ghost Ranch. About 100 or more people were there. Boehner and Tipton addressed the crowd while standing in front of a stage.

John Boehner returns to his office after a visit to the House floor for procedural votes for legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security at the Capitol in Washington
House Speaker John Boehner returns to his office after a visit to the House floor in February 2015. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

It’s no surprise that Boehner and Cruz have a rocky relationship. The Texas senator and the speaker have clashed over tactics and policy. And Cruz, on the campaign trail, often criticizes the Republican Washington establishment.

For Cruz, the attack could be helpful: Boehner is not beloved by the conservative grassroots activists the Texas senator is courting. And it could further endear Cruz to voters who find Donald Trump’s anti-Washington message appealing.

The Daily Caller has reached out to Boehner, Cruz and Tipton’s press offices for comment.