Later, taking the stage in black cowboy boots, Cruz showed he could also be a crowd-pleaser. “It is great to be with so many friends here in New York City,” he said.

Pacing the stage like a revival preacher and speaking without notes, Cruz made no mention of guns, the Sandy aid or the immigration bill. Instead, he performed a political postmortem.

“I’m going to suggest the last election can be explained in two words: 47 percent,” he said.

Those words, , created the wrong narrative, Cruz said. Much better, he said, was Romney’s line, “You built that.”

“And yet, as good as it was, it could’ve been a lot better. Because to whom was it addressed? It was addressed to the 53 percent. It was addressed to the people who’d already built their businesses,” Cruz said. “How much better would it have been if Romney had campaigned and said, ‘You can build that’?”