Cruz swaying fans of libertarian Ron Paul
FORT DODGE, Iowa — When Rand Paul entered the GOP presidential race, he sought to stitch together a distinct coalition: his father’s fiercely loyal libertarian supporters, millennials, and others new to Republican politics whom he hoped to draw with his provocative stances on privacy and marijuana laws.
Six months later, none of that is working.
Paul is a low single-digit blip in the polls. He barely meets the threshold to participate in the next debate later this month. Influential conservatives are urging him to bail out.
“Rand Paul, It Is Time to Take Your Campaign Out Back and Shoot It,” RedState editor Erick Erickson wrote last week,
As the Kentucky senator struggles, a sometime ally turned rival, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, is working hard to court voters who adored Paul’s father. Rand Paul’s strategists had assumed that voters enamored of former Rep. Ron Paul, a Texas libertarian, would be the bedrock of his support.
Cruz, a fellow product of the tea party movement, is beginning to pick up support just as Paul is losing it. The Texas senator is building a large campaign bank account while Paul is spending more money than he is raising.
Since last month, Cruz has moved up in several polls. Although he remains far behind front-runners Donald Trump and Ben Carson, he has moved firmly into the next tier of candidates, closely bunched together with Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina and the party’s onetime establishment favorite, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Drew Ivers, Ron Paul’s 2012 Iowa chairman, suggested there was an inherent conflict in Rand Paul’s presidential slogan — “Defeat the Washington machine” — and the fact he campaigned for members of the Capitol Hill establishment, such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “That is a mixed signal.”
Ivers, who is not aligned with any candidate in the 2016 race, said Paul’s efforts to court both the right and left was a flawed strategy. “It has backfired,” he said.
Cruz has taken a different approach and is trying to build a coalition of his tea party base, libertarians and religious voters. The son of a pastor, he announced his presidential campaign at Liberty University, founded by fundamentalist preacher Jerry Falwell.
“Religious liberty has never been more under assault than it is right now,” Cruz told voters recently at a Pizza Ranch in Rockwell City, Iowa.
Cruz is best known for filibustering for more than 21 hours in an unsuccessful effort to defund the national health care act and for helping lead a government shutdown in 2013.
Many fellow Republicans in Washington dislike Cruz for such tactics, but the confrontational maneuvers have given him credibility among his base — and among fans of Ron Paul, a three-time presidential candidate.
Cruz has announced endorsements from 15 former supporters of Ron Paul’s presidential bids in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Campaigning in Iowa in recent days, Cruz repeatedly mentioned the elder Paul admiringly.
“I’m one of the original co-sponsors of Ron Paul’s audit the Fed” legislation, Cruz told about 50 people in Fort Dodge, Iowa, embracing the former congressman’s signature issue.
On the stump, Cruz assiduously avoids criticizing Trump, unlike Paul, in an apparent effort to snag his supporters should the billionaire’s campaign falter.
Cruz has reported raising about $12 million in the third quarter and having nearly $13.5 million in the bank. Paul, meanwhile, spent more than $4.5 million, about $2 million more than his campaign raised in the quarter. He listed $2.1 million cash on hand.