It was $30,000 for a 30-second ad aired during “Killing Jesus” on Fox News over Easter weekend, according to CNN and Politico reporting. Cruz’s team also bought time on commercial breaks for “A.D.: The Bible Continues” on NBC. “Killing Jesus” is based on Bill O’Reilly’s best-selling book of the same title. The adaptation stars Kelsey Grammer as King Herod and originally aired on National Geographic Channel.

Cruz, who made his presidential announcement on the campus of famous evangelical Liberty University in Virginia in March, emphasized his faith, referencing the “transformative love of Jesus Christ” and segueing into the power of the American people to overcome seemingly impossible odds. Cruz references his father Rafael Cruz’s conversion to Christianity in his first line saying without Jesus, he “would have been raised by a single mom without my father in the home.”

I might have rewritten that line to emphasize the positive—”Because of the power of Jesus Christ, I was given a transformed and a dedicated family man as a father.”—something like that. I perfectly understand what’s he’s communicating, but Americans like sunny, and the ad rightly turns to the redeeming power of the American spirit next, beaming with sunrises and all that is good and forward-looking. His cute daughters don’t hurt either.

For an interesting read on Rafael Cruz’s interesting life and rise to conservative stardom, check out National Review from last year. Indeed, a father-son relationship this close made possible by Jesus Christ is quite a powerful testimony, particularly when you have a preacher delivering it on your behalf all over Iowa:

“My dad poured himself into my Senate race last year,” he recalls. “In the early months, we didn’t have much of a campaign. One day, I couldn’t make an event, so he drove out to West Texas alone — no staffers, nothing — and he spoke on my behalf. A few hours later, I called and asked how it went. He said, ‘Even surrogates for the other candidates were asking for Cruz yard signs.’”

Ever since, Cruz has kept his father, a 74-year-old pastor, involved with his political shop, using him not merely as a confidant and stand-in, but as a special envoy. He is Cruz’s preferred introductory speaker, his best messenger with evangelicals, and his favorite on-air sidekick — a presence who softens his edge. This past Sunday, the pair sat for a joint CNN interview, one full of aw-shucks asides.

This summer, father and son have also been traveling together throughout the country, speaking to conservatives in Iowa and elsewhere. Their roadshow has enthralled many on the right and startled Cruz’s potential 2016 rivals. No one else in the emerging GOP field has an ally like the charismatic elder Cruz.