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Ted Cruz: Obama’s ‘Lasting Legacy’ Will Be Creating Republican Leaders

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore President Obama’s “longest lasting legacy” will be helping to create a new group of Republican leaders, says Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

Cruz, speaking at the Cuyahoga County GOP Lincoln Day dinner in Ohio on Thursday, made the comments while assessing why Republicans lost the 2012 presidential race. Cruz said Democrats controlled the perception of their party and the Republican Party.

“You want to know what happened last election cycle? We didn’t win the argument for the American people,” Cruz said Thursday night according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
“The Democrats’ story is the Republicans are the party of the rich, the Democrats are the party of everybody else. And if that’s the narrative people believe, we’ll never win another national election.”

But in the end, Obama’s time in office will help create a new set of Republican leaders, Cruz added.

Read more from this story HERE.

NYT Goes Birther: Attacks ‘Canadian-Born’ Cruz, Calls Him ‘McCarthyite’

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Liberals, the mainstream media, and establishment Republicans often reveal which conservatives they fear by their level of disdain and vitriol.

This week, they put their crosshairs on freshman Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), a Tea Party conservative of Hispanic descent who undermines the mainstream media’s ability to advance their false notion that being a minority and Tea Partier are mutually exclusive. He is a conservative who showed no desire to defer to the Senate’s “courtly” ways, the preferences of the institution’s old bulls.

The sinking ship that is the New York Times, the so-called paper of record, provided evidence of what it fears most in its Saturday edition: strong, distinct full-throated conservative voices from folks who ain’t “country club,” geriatric, and white. The Washington Post and Politico joined the times in assailing Cruz this week for similar reasons.

The Times did a thorough review of the freshman senator’s stunning seven-week run:

  • leading the charge on the destruction of Chuck Hagel’s bona fides as Secretary of Defense;
  • one of only three Republicans to vote against John Kerry because of his longstanding less-than-vigorous defense of U.S. national security issues;
  • one of only 34 that voted against raising the debt ceiling;
  • one of only 22 who voted against the Violence Against Women Act;
  • one of only 36 who voted against the pork-ladened Hurricane Sandy financial aid package;
  • one of only 19 who voted against arming the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Cairo;
  • called out Rahm Emanuel;
  • confronted Chuck Schumer on national TV;
  • enraged Senators Boxer and McCaskill enough for them to label him as a “McCarthyite”

Read more from this story HERE.

Cruz: Conservatism ‘On the Verge of a Rebirth’

WASHINGTON — Newly minted Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on Saturday offered an optimistic picture of conservatism’s future.

“We are on the verge of a rebirth,” Cruz declared to a conservative audience at the National Review Institute Summit.

Lambasting President Barack Obama’s inauguration speech as “an ode to liberalism” and as much of a lip-sync job as Beyonce’s version of the National Anthem, Cruz — who has been pushing his idea of “opportunity conservatism” — encouraged conservative not to lose hope, despite an emboldened Obama and Democratic majority in the Senate.

“We can stop this, we can turn it around and in fact, I am right now incredibly, incredibly optimistic,” he said.

Cruz offered two paths for the movement to follow, one short-term and one long. His short-term plan, he said, is largely directed to the Republican majority in the House of Representatives — what he called “the last bastion standing between us and oblivion.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Senators Ted Cruz and Chuck Schumer Debate Gun Control, Debt Ceiling, and More

photo credit: gage skidmore

Newly elected Texas Senator Ted Cruz appeared on Meet The Press on Sunday with David Gregory and New York Senator Chuck Schumer to talk gun control, the debt ceiling, Chuck Hagel, and Colin Powell’s latest charges of Republican intolerance and bigotry.

Up against one of the most formidable Democrat interlocutors in the United States Senate, the freshman Tea Party Senator more than held his own, performing as a seasoned veteran.

If this interview is any indication of Cruz’ future performance in the Senate, it appears Conservatives will have an able spokesman on the national stage for the foreseeable future.

GOP Should Stand for Opportunity

photo credit: gage skidmore

Since Election Day, much energy has been spent analyzing why Republicans did so poorly. Many have urged that Republicans must “moderate their views,” by which they mean we should adopt more policies of Democrats.

That advice misdiagnoses the problem. The 2012 election did not reflect popular approval of the Obama policies of out-of-control spending, taxes, deficits and debt. To the contrary, 51 percent of voters on Election Day agreed that “government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals.”

Nor did the election reflect satisfaction with the paltry economic growth that President Obama’s abusive regulatory approach has produced. Voters are rightly unhappy with the anemic growth in gross domestic product the past four years; the average, just 1.5 percent, is less than half of our historic average since World War II, but 53 percent of voters believed the economy was George W. Bush’s fault.

Why did voters believe that? Obama repeated it relentlessly, and Republicans never responded.

First you win the argument, then you win the vote, Margaret Thatcher famously admonished. Republicans did neither.

Read more from this article HERE.

Cruz Sworn In As Texas’ First Hispanic US Senator, Will Introduce Bill To Repeal ‘Obamacare’

AUSTIN, Texas (CBS/AP) — Tea party darling Ted Cruz has been sworn in as U.S. senator and says his first order of business will be introducing a bill he knows will never pass.

Cruz is a Cuban-American and former state solicitor general. On Thursday, he became the first Hispanic to represent Texas in the Senate.

He has pledged that his first bill would seek to repeal “every syllable of every word” of the Obama administration’s health care reform law.

Now in office, Cruz said he will keep that promise, even though he knows Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama will ensure his bill won’t become law.

Fueled by grassroots support, Cruz could become a rising star among Capitol Hill conservatives following the retirement of tea party leader U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ted Cruz’s Victory Foretells Conservative Takeover of GOP

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, made the following comments yesterday about Ted Cruz’s incredible victory in Texas:

“The victory of Ted Cruz in the Texas Republican Senate runoff primary means that the torch is being passed to a new generation of principled small government constitutional conservatives and that the ‘let’s make a deal’ Republican Party of old will soon go the way of the Dodo bird.

“Ted’s nomination sent a strong signal that a new conservative Republican Party is being born and, by 2016, principled conservatives will replace most leaders in Congress and the Party at the national, state, and local levels. GOP leaders should ‘ask not for whom the bell tolls — it tolls for thee.’

“The Cruz campaign was a contest in which the people–grassroots conservatives and Tea Partiers — routed the establishment and the special interests.

“Inspired by such national conservative leaders as Sarah Palin, Phyllis Schlafly, Ed Meese, James Dobson, by Senators Jim DeMint, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Tom Coburn, and by organizations such as The Club for Growth and FreedomWorks, the grassroots conservative and Tea Party voters of Texas took on the combined power of Governor Rick Perry, every Texas GOP state senator save one, and the good old boy network of Austin and DC lobbyists–and they won.

“By nominating Ted Cruz, the Republican voters of Texas today sent a strong message that what they want is an end to the crony capitalism, business-as-usual spending, and disregard for the Constitution that have dominated Washington no matter which party was in power.” Read more from this story HERE.

Another view:  Tea Party’s influence could reshape Senate Republicans

By Jennifer Steinhauer.  The tea party is very much alive in the drive for Republican control of the Senate, portending a potential shake-up in the mindset of the chamber.

The easy Republican primary victory in Texas on Tuesday of Ted Cruz, the 41-year-old Sarah Palin-blessed upstart, virtually assured the latest tea party candidate a seat in the chamber next year. And he will not be alone when it comes to those backed by the movement that propelled Republicans to control of the House in 2010.

Among 17 contested Senate races and in Texas, more than half a dozen of the Republican candidates — or those currently running ahead in their primaries — are tea party-embraced. The infusion of new conservative blood could alter the complexion of the Senate, increasing the sorts of conflicts between moderates and far-right Republicans disinclined toward compromise that have characterized the House for two years.

From Indiana — where Richard Mourdock recently toppled the veteran Republican Sen. Richard Lugar — to Wisconsin — where two tea party candidates are slowly unmooring the Republican front-runner, former Gov. Tommy Thompson — to Nebraska — where Deb Fischer surprisingly beat out a more established Republican candidate — tea party-backed contenders are surging. In Missouri, three Republicans are fighting to portray themselves as the candidate most strongly aligned with tea party values.

Even if Democrats maintain control, newcomers like Cruz are likely to quickly coalesce with veteran conservatives like Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and freshmen like Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, enlarging the ranks of members who stand well to the right of their party’s central platform. Read more from this story HERE.

Tea party candidate Ted Cruz wins in Texas GOP runoff

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

Tea party favorite Ted Cruz, once considered a long shot to win the Texas Republican Senate nomination, beat Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in a bitterly contested and expensive two-man runoff election Tuesday.

With 100 percent of the precincts reporting, Mr. Cruz got 57 percent of the vote to Mr. Dewhurst’s 43 percent, according to official election returns.

Mr. Cruz will face former Texas state lawmaker Paul Sadler, who the AP declared the winner over Grady Yarbrough in Tuesday’s Democratic primary runoff. But Mr. Sadler will have a huge cash disadvantage and be a significant underdog come November in the Republican-dominated state.

A year ago Mr. Dewhurst, 66, was considered the heir apparent to the seat, which was created by the retirement of four-term incumbent GOPSen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. He was endorsed by the largely popular Gov. Rick Perry. And a personal fortune estimated to be worth $200 million meant that any serious opponent was going to have to raise significant cash to stay competitive.

The lieutenant governor had touted his experience in the Air Force, the CIA and in business, as well as a statewide political career that began in 1999 as the commissioner of the Texas General Land Office.

Read more from this story HERE.