03 December 2015
A Rising Star in the West
by J.R. Thomas
An American reader of the Shaw Sheet has kindly drawn our attention to a quietly rising star in the Republican race for the presidential nomination. Ted Cruz is his name and one might be forgiven for overlooking him among the noisy boys who currently soak up the headlines. Cruz has been maintaining a low key stance in the race, at least so far. He is certainly keeping well away from the mud-flinging taking place among some candidates, not a great strategy if you want media attention, but maybe a very good one if you don’t want enemies or to have your positions too heavily defined at this point in the race.
Cruz, though of a Cuban father and with an American mother, was born in Canada. Therein might lie his first problem. Is he is a natural born USA citizen, as the constitution requires? “Yes”, say most pundits, but “Maybe no”, say a few constitutional lawyers, as he was not born in the USA itself – he had dual citizenship until 2013 when he renounced his Canadian citizenship. That is something that will need a clear resolution before things run too far. It does not seem to be bothering Ted though. He certainly could have been designed to pick up a very broad swathe of American minority votes- his mother of Irish and Italian background, his father of Spanish and Cuban, though resident in the US since 1957.
He has the right profile certainly, aged almost 45, maybe a trifle young in a race dominated so far by those in their sixties. Happily married (to a senior Goldman Sachs banker, currently on leave of absence), two daughters, distinguished academic record and then legal training at Harvard Law School, becoming Solicitor General for Texas in 2003, where he argued various cases with success (and considerable eloquence). That took him into politics – he had long been active in Republican politics, especially on the libertarian leaning flank of the party.
In 2012 he was elected junior Senator for Texas, a surprising result – especially for the Democrat incumbent who thought he had a safe seat. But that campaign, and the reason why Cruz did so well, may be an indication as to his current tactics in the nomination race.
Cruz is a great constituency builder, a tireless builder of relationships with voters, sponsors, supporters. He is an impressive speaker, a man who can develop a very strong rapport with the members of his audience – a Reagan like ability to make people loyal to him very quickly. In the Texas senatorial race he spent a lot of time on the road talking to people, addressing small town meetings, often very informally. It made him low profile in the conventional media – which is why his Republican competing nominee under-estimated him, and why his Democrat opponent did not spot him coming until very late in the race.
On a bigger scale that is what he has been doing in the build up to the GOP selections, quietly meeting groups, convincing them that he is a suitable candidate, a man of sound views, a suitable candidate for their vote, and, more importantly at this stage, their money. Which is one big advantage to an outside, regional based candidate such as Cruz – he has not got the big bucks behind him and will not unless he starts to look like a winner, so he has to run an economical campaign. So he has been quietly padding round Iowa, meeting people, addressing those local groups, quietly convincing the voters that Ted is a nice guy, steady, reliable, quietly effective.
And that seems to be working. The latest opinion polls are showing that Ted is coming up in Iowa Republican voter preferences very fast. He is well ahead of Carson now, the good doctor starting to sink fast under his recent wild remarks and (according to the pollsters) looking very weak on foreign policy. Trump too has lost a bit of leeway – that outburst attack on Carson in Iowa did not help, nor are his very recent remarks on his ability to sniff terrorist events likely to do much for him – but he is still at 25% of preferences. Ted is at 23%. What is fascinating – though not if you are one of the GOP establishment- is that all three men are, in Republican terms, outsiders, not from the chosen list; and they have 67% of Republican preferences! Jeb Bush, incidentally, is on 4%. If you were a senior rainmaker in the Party, and you had the choice between Trump, Carson, and that nice, if independent, Senator from Texas, what would you do? Not that they are going to start supporting any of the three yet, in the hope that Rubio or Fiorina might start to break through, or Romney might yet change his mind.
It is Iowa that will be the clincher for the next stage of the campaign. Already the money is starting to move behind Cruz. If he wins in Iowa, that might knock Trump over, maybe even out, and the establishment support may start to swing behind Ted. He almost certainly won’t win New Hampshire as he has not (so far) done much campaigning there, but on 1st March will come Texas and several other states. He must win Texas, of course, and it is hard to see how he can’t, but he will need to win well elsewhere too. If he does, then he could really be in the fifty dollar seat.
So far we have been relentlessly positive. We have not considered Cruz’s actual politics, for instance. Texas Republicans tend to be free spirited good old boys and girls, and Ted has been brought up admiring Hayek, Friedman, and no doubt reading Ayn Rand. His publicly expressed opinions certainly tend to the libertarian side of the Republican rainbow. His campaign for his senatorial seat involved a lot of talking to Tea Party activists. His record in Washington suggests that he is not a trimmer either – he is anti-abortion, has proposed the abolition of the Internal Revenue Service and the introduction of flat taxes, pro death penalty, hawkish on foreign policy. The Tea Party is powerful in state politics, true, and not just in Texas but Tea Party support alone is not enough; the trick for any candidate is to pull all the disparate constituencies of the Republican Party together.
Cruz’s record is not great on that; he has attacked, quite forcefully, the leadership of his own party; he has failed to make many friends around the House; he has attacked the President in slightly eyebrow raising terms. But, given his support basis back in Texas, and what seems to be his essentially friendly good nature – that Bill Murray like smile suggests a good heart – is this all just playing to his political position?
Because the problem is this: that hawkish, rightish stance might win him the nomination but it will be a hard one to put across as a winning national political message. Not impossible – Reagan did it, but he toned it all down for the presidential campaign. The times are maybe more centrist than when Reagan was running, in a country desperate for leadership, looking weak and defeated abroad, with a struggling economy. Hang on though…
Something about Cruz suggests that he is a very serious and ambitious man. That this is a candidate who knows that a degree of moderation will be needed at the right time, and will deliver it. The trick, as it always is, will be to do it without offending the core supporters. The money suspects that Cruz can do that. Definitely one to watch.
(Next time (unless events overtake us), Bernie Sanders)
Click here if you would like an email reminder when The Shaw Sheet comes out each Thursday
