“Cruz has an entirely different theory than Obama did in 2008,” says David Axelrod, the president’s political adviser in his 2004 Senate race and two presidential bids. “Obama’s message was that the values and concerns that unite us are greater than the things that divide us. It was predicated on the idea that even as we disagreed on some things, we could find common ground on which we could work together. And his record as a legislator of working across party lines was validation of the message.”
The contrast with Cruz says everything about how Cruz’s theory of victory differs from the Democrats theory—and, yes, how Obama lowered the work requirements for national candidates. Obama’s 2008 campaign worried from the outset about its candidate looking like a young man in a hurry. ”I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness—a certain audacity—to this announcement,” Obama said at his February 2007 campaign launch. “I know I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.”
Cruz, at Liberty University, made no such a mea culpa. At no point in his announcement speech did he actually mention that he was a United States senator. He only referenced the city he raised $15 million get to by way of saying that real change “will not come from Washington.” And in his launch day interviews, even in an hour-long Fox News sit-down, the experience question never came up. In Cruz’s circle, there’s just no question that a career as solicitor general then senator from Texas gets him over the experience hump.
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