Politico reports that Ted Cruz didn’t specifically call Jeb Bush a moderate, saying that’s up to voters to make that decision. But they say his implication was clear:
POLITICO – Texas Sen. Ted Cruz insists he’s a “big fan” of Jeb Bush. But when asked Tuesday about the former Florida governor’s move toward a presidential run, Cruz suggested the Republican party would lose if they nominate another relative moderate.
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“If we nominate another candidate in the mold of a Bob Dole or a John McCain or a Mitt Romney — and let me be clear, all three of those men, they’re good men, they’re honorable men, they’re decent men, they’re men of character, they’re war heroes — but what they did didn’t work,” Cruz said in an interview in his Senate office. “It did not succeed. And if we nominate another candidate in that same mold, the same voters who stayed home in 2008 and 2012 will stay home in 2016, and Hillary Clinton is the next president.”
Asked whether Jeb Bush is in that “mold,” Cruz replied, “that’s going to be a decision for the primary voters to make.”
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“We will have a robust debate about the right direction for this country, and critically, how do we win?” he said. “There is this cabal of consultants in Washington who keep running national campaigns and losing. And they keep going back to the same supporters over and over again, saying, ‘Write us another check to go make the same mistakes yet another time.’ What we’re doing right now isn’t working, and Einstein famously observed that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. The same voters that stayed home in 2012 which cost Mitt Romney the election will stay home again in 2016 if Jeb Bush is the nominee. It’s really that simple.
We must nominate a solid conservative like Cruz or we can kiss 2016 goodbye.