The physical terrain Monday was Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, founded by Jerry Falwell, in 1971, as part of a vision “to build a Christian educational system for evangelical youth.” But Falwell’s vision, of course, was broader than that. The biggest thing he founded in the 1970s was the Moral Majority, which was formally disbanded by the 1990s but nonetheless represents the historic high-water mark for the religious right’s ambition and influence in modern American politics. Cruz’s decision to launch his campaign at Liberty University, the academy of the culture wars, is a clear overture to evangelicals. He made that explicit in the speech itself, noting that roughly half of born-again Christians don’t vote: “Imagine, instead, millions of people of faith all across America coming out to the polls and voting our values.”
As a longtime Cruz watcher—if any of us can be considered “longtime” watchers of a guy who never held any electoral office before winning his Senate seat two and a half years ago—I’ve always considered him a more complex character than his popular reputation would suggest, and a more shrewd operator. That’s still my impression; the political strategy here makes sense. But it’s risky, even by Cruz’s standards.
Like most of the “Tea Party” type conservatives elected to Congress in recent years, Cruz won his seat by running against not just Barack Obama and his agenda but also against the Republican establishment. That was bound to be his strategy in a 2016 campaign too. Many conservatives, including Cruz, have pre-emptively framed next year’s race as a looming battle between the moderates and the conservatives or Tea Party or whatever we’re calling them these days. And it’s likely that the primary will boil down to a choice between an establishment candidate, like Jeb Bush—especially Jeb—and the last remaining anti-establishment candidate. Cruz, clearly, wants to be the alternative. It’s not an unreasonable ambition, given that he’s widely popular with Republicans who identify with the Tea Party or as conservatives.
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