“He’s hurting himself with the D.C. establishment in order to help himself with the base in Iowa and elsewhere. D.C. is interested in whether something is going to be effective. Conservative caucus activists aren’t concerned about that,” said Republican presidential strategist David Kochel, Mitt Romney’s former top Iowa adviser.

The downside to the Cruz approach, Kochel said, it’s that “he looks like it’s all just complete grandstanding to no effect whatsoever except to call attention to himself. It’s not like the Rand Paul filibuster, which actually did affect public policy and start a real conversation. The conversation on Obamacare was already had and is still being had.”…

Drew Cline, the editorial page editor of New Hampshire’s influential Union Leader newspaper, said the ACA funding filibuster “absolutely helps Cruz with the GOP base” — in part because Cruz never really had a chance of succeeding.

“He has grabbed the flag and charged the part to the edge of the battlefield. He gets to be the general without facing the consequences of an actual battle — and he can blame the old generals for flinching from the fight,” Cline said. “Had he been able to persuade enough senators to sustain a filibuster and shut down the government, though, he’d be Custer.”

Texas-based GOP strategist David Carney, a former Next Gingrich and Rick Perry adviser who worked against Cruz in the 2012 Senate primary, said the bottom line is that Cruz is “building a reputation that no fight is too big.”