“I appreciate the liberty things that Cruz does, but he’s too polarizing sometimes. He’s become the whipping boy for the left,” said Jason Amatucci, a conferencegoer from Virginia. “I also think he’s hypocritical on his marijuana stance. I don’t see how you can sit there and say everybody should have guns but draw the line on the drug war. I think that’s just ridiculous.”

In fact, Cruz’s overt partisan criticism of the Obama administration, as opposed to substantive policy critiques, was repeatedly cited as a reason why he’ll have trouble expanding his support with libertarians, who are often skeptical of party politics.

“Rand is attacking government policy, not particularly any administration. Cruz seems to be, even though I’m a full supporter of him, a lot more blatant attacking the administration,” said Dennis Wade. “It’s easier to win people over to liberty when you are not attacking someone personally … When you are talking about the administration, you can lose some listeners in that battle.”…

“I think he’s trying to have it both ways,” Feliciano said, citing Cruz’s support of “traditional big government, big defense, ‘we’re going to protect the world.’”