Tag Archives: Ted Cruz

News

Ted Cruz raises $12 million in Q3, and another million in the first 9 days of Q4

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Texas Senator Ted Cruz
Texas Senator Ted Cruz

First, the report from last quarter from U.S. News and World Report. (H/T Doug)

Excerpt:

Ted Cruz raised $12.2 million in the past three months for his Republican presidential bid, about twice what competitor Marco Rubio collected in the same time period.

[…]So far it appears that another political outsider, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, is leading in quarterly fundraising. His campaign said last week it raised $20 million between July 1 and Sept. 30.

[…]The Cruz campaign noted it raised more than $1 million in the final 24 hours of September.

That was for the quarter ending in at the end of September. So how is Cruz doing in the first 9 days of October?

Pretty good:

Today, the Cruz for President campaign announced it raised $1 million in the first 9 days of the fourth quarter. Cruz’s impressive haul in just over a week comes off his successful third quarter fundraising, in which he pulled in more than $12 million. The early start in the fourth quarter brings his campaign’s total to more than $27.5 million.

[…]In 9 days, Cruz raised $1 million from roughly 20,000 donations of mostly $50 or less. Cruz also recently revealed his campaign has more than 6000 “sustainers”, donors who give monthly, that are able to fund his entire field operation across the country each month.

I saw another story that says that the Cruz campaign “has county chairs organizing in all 172 counties in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada”. This guy is making a serious push for the nomination, and he and Jindal are the last two strong conservatives standing.

Cruz has actually introduced a lot of legislation in the past, and his latest bill is very helpful for getting the Democrats to go on record on a very unpopular position that most Democrats hold.

Read this:

This week U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced as a lead cosponsor the Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act. The bill would withhold federal funds from sanctuary jurisdictions. The legislation also incorporates critical elements of Kate’s Law, which Sen. Cruz introduced earlier this year, by imposing a five-year mandatory minimum sentence on any alien who illegally reenters the country after having been convicted of an aggravated felony or two prior illegal reentry offenses.

[…]“In light of the threat criminal aliens pose to the safety and security of our communities, we can no longer allow states and municipalities to take federal taxpayer money while turning a blind eye to the illegal aliens in their midst,” said Sen. Cruz. “What happened to Kate Steinle is heartbreaking. And the heartbreak is even more tragic given the circumstances. Clearly, our laws are not adequately deterring those who have already been deported from illegally reentering the country. I’m proud to join with my colleagues in sending the message that defiance of our nation’s laws will no longer be tolerated. Of course, stiff penalties alone will not suffice. Congress must hold this Administration accountable for its failure-if not its outright refusal-to enforce federal immigration laws and ensure the safety and protection of the American people.”

That’s what Republicans should be doing when there’s a Democrat President. Pass bills that get vetoed, so you can define yourself and tell the voters where the other side really stands. Politicians love to speak about issues that are popular, as long as they don’t have to alienate any voters by actually acting on it. Well, a veto of sanctuary cities tells everyone where Democrats stand on crimes committed by illegal immigrants. That’s what we need to do – make them show their real views.

News

Ted Cruz questions Sierra Club President about global warming science

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Now, Ted Cruz is currently my #2 choice behind the excellent Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal. However, this 10-minute video of Ted Cruz doing what I think he does best must be blogged.

Here is the video (10 minutes):

And the Daily Signal has the story.

Excerpt:

Sen. Ted Cruz’s questioning of Sierra Club President Aaron Mair turned contentious Tuesday, then went viral when the Texas Republican posted the nearly 10-minute exchange.

Cruz repeatedly pressed Mair to address satellite data that found an 18-year pause in global warming, countering the Sierra Club’s claim of a warming trend. He asked the green group to retract its assertion that the “planet is cooking” in light of scientific evidence suggesting the opposite.

Mair stonewalled the question each time, answering only that his group supports the “97 percent of scientists that say the exact opposite.”

“So if the data are contrary to your testimony, would the Sierra Club issue a retraction?” Cruz asked.

“Sir, we concur with the 97-percent scientific consensus with regards to global warming,” Mair responded.

The two battled back and forth in a contentious exchange until Cruz concluded in frustration that Mair was unwilling to rescind his claim.

“You know, Mr. Mair, I find it striking that for a public policy organization that purports to focus exclusively on environmental issues, that you’re not willing to tell this committee that you would issue a retraction if your testimony is objectively false under scientific data,” Cruz said. “That undermines the credibility of any organization.”

Now, the knock on Cruz is that he has not been able to accomplish much as a legislator. I am looking for someone who can craft legislation that gets enough votes between the two parties to move forward and either get vetoed, or get turned into law. Cruz sounds so good when he talks, but I want a candidate who has more policy accomplishments and has successfully defended his policies and decisions from attacks.

Bobby Jindal is my top pick for exactly that reason. Rather than merely saying the things I want to hear, he adds doing the things I want to be done to his words.

Take a look at this article from the Washington Post, which looks at which candidate was the most effective at moving legislation, and getting bills turned into laws.

It says:

Jindal got 1.7 laws passed for every year he spent in the House, far more than anyone else.

By sponsored bills, he also comes out on top, though John Kasich also had a relatively high percentage of the bills he sponsored in the House see the president’s pen.

So who is the most effective legislator running for president? By this metric, we’ll give it to Jindal.

Here’s the graph:

Governor Bobby Jindal is the best at getting things done
Governor Bobby Jindal is the best at getting things done

Let’s look a bit more at the differences between Cruz and Jindal. First, Jindal is a policy guru, and has got things done in education and health care policy going back as far as 1996, when he was only 24 years old and go the job to take over state-level health care policy in Louisiana. He knocked it out of the park. As Governor of Louisiana, he put into place a state-wide voucher program and privatized many wasteful, bloated government programs. And he was willing to battle against the Obama administration to keep his “parent’s choice” education plan. He is the only GOP primary candidate with a detailed plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, and because of his past success, we know that he is competent to do that job. We don’t have to just believe his words, we can look at his accomplishments. And Jindal is the most socially conservative candidate in the race. Whether it’s on abortion or gay marriage, we don’t have to trust mere words. We have something better: actions. Cruz does not have the record on social issues that Jindal has. And what’s more, I don’t think that Cruz is as conservative on social issues as Jindal is.

So, that’s why Jindal is my number one pick right now, and Cruz is number two. We are losing a lot of experience and achievements if we have to fall back to Cruz. He would make a good attorney general, but he is not the best qualified conservative in the primary. Jindal is.

Videos

Trump gets 5% in straw poll of informed voters at Values Voters Summit

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Texas Senator Ted Cruz
Texas Senator Ted Cruz

I was actually thinking of going to this annual Washington conference of value voters, because the speakers line up so closely with my values. You might think that it’s all social conservatism, but this is actually a really good place to find good talks on the free market system, as well as peace through strength foreign policy.

Anyway, they took a poll of the values voters, and Ted Cruz won:

Sen. Ted Cruz won the Values Voter Summit straw poll for the third year in a row on Saturday, a strong showing of support from evangelical voters for his 2016 presidential bid.

The firebrand Texas senator won a whopping 35 percent in the poll of summit-goers, ahead of runner-up Ben Carson’s 18 percent. That margin is significantly wider than last year, where he edged out Carson by just 5 percentage points.

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (Ark.) took third with 14 percent, followed by Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) with 13 percent. Real estate magnate Donald Trump finished a distant fifth with 5 percent.

Carson won the event’s poll for vice president, his second consecutive win for that category.

Family Research Council Action president Tony Perkins announced the results Saturday afternoon to applause from the conference’s attendees. Perkins’ group organized the three-day event.

Eight GOP presidential candidates took to the summit stage in order to make their case to the religious conservative audience—Cruz, Carson, Trump, Rubio, Huckabee, as well as Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Rand Paul (Ky.), and Gov. Bobby Jindal (La.).

The results confirm Cruz, Carson and Huckabee’s strength among religious conservative voters. Each rely on the voting bloc as a core piece of their electorate, but the huge win for Cruz is likely encouraging considering recent polls showing the senator outside of the top tier with evangelicals.

But the figures are surprising for both Rubio and Trump. Rubio’s finish shows him continuing to make gains with religious conservative voters as he rises in national polling. But the result is a disappointment for Trump, who had led with evangelicals in two recent polls.

The Values Voter Summit though is Cruz country and several conference-goers mentioned his name first as the person they trust most on issues important to social conservatives when interviewed by The Hill during the event.

[…]A handful of candidates didn’t attend the summit—Jeb Bush, Govs. Chris Christie (N.J.), John Kasich (Ohio) and Carly Fiorina.

The ones that didn’t attend are, not surprisingly, the same ones I marked as social moderates. Better than a Democrat, not as good as real conservatives like Jindal or Cruz.

Anyway, Cruz’s speech was awesome:

And his list of Day One promises was also amazing.

Sample:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) electrified conservatives at the Values Voters Summit in Washington on Friday as he laid out plans for his first day in the White House.

Cruz vowed to rescind all of President Obama’s “illegal and unconstitutional executive actions,” said he would order the Department of Justice to prosecute Planned Parenthood, instruct the DOJ and Internal Revenue Service to end religious persecution of citizens, “rip to shreds” the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran and move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Upon each declaration, Cruz received huge applause and a standing ovation.

“That’s just day one,” Cruz said. “There are 365 days in the year, four years in a presidential term, four years in a second term. By the end of eight years, this ballroom is going to be a whole lot bigger. By the end of eight years, there will be a whole lot of reporters and journalists who have checked themselves into therapy.”

And if the idea of connecting with socially conservative voters is appealing to you, be sure to go to FRC.org and subscribe the daily and weekend podcasts. These podcasts are my favorites, along with The Weekly Standard podcast.

My original list of favorite candidates in the 2016 GOP primary:

  1. Walker
  2. Jindal
  3. Perry
  4. Cruz
  5. Rubio

I really hope Jindal, Cruz or Rubio can take this thing, because I don’t want to have to be promoting someone I am not excited about.