Cruz Goes to Mexican Restaurant “to Connect With Voters”
Constitutional rights are important to Cruz supporters.
By Rachel Ramirez and Ali Steinberg
Located at 42 Central Square, Keene, NH is Padraza’s Mexican Restaurant. Inside the restaurant, Mexican music played softly over speakers in a room of red and tan square floor tile floors. On the brown and pinkish tan walls, sculpture, mirrors, photographs, and a stuffed parrot hung. Customers sat under yellow pendant lights that gave up a surprising amount of light.
At 2 pm on Sunday, only five tables were occupied at Pedraza’s. The restaurant was quiet. Wait staff were expecting Sen. Ted Cruz for a “meet and greet” but were unaware of specifics of where he would stand and what the event would be. The waitresses said they just found out about the event “last week.” The only signal that something important was happening at Padraza’s was the white and orange van with a satellite dish on top parked outside.
Within the next hour, supporters began to pour into the intimate Mexican restaurant, holding Cruz signs and sporting Cruz stickers. The hostess stated that tickets reserved through Eventbrite were “not the real thing. I don’t know where they came from.” By 3:08 pm, the previously calm restaurant had a line out the door. Waitresses became frantic, one’s eyes darted frantically and began taking deep breaths.
The room was filled with mostly white, middle-aged supporters, murmuring with anticipation. Some volunteers for the Cruz campaign took initiative and began handing out stickers and contact cards to supporters. By 3:30, the restaurant was filled with close to 100 people.
At five to four, Cruz’s campaign bus plastered with “Cruzin’ to Victory” drove past the restaurant, and supporters ran outside to snap photos.
Twenty minutes later, Mr. Cruz strode in the back door of the restaurant clad in a blue dress shirt, blue jeans and brown ostrich leather heeled boots. Cameras flashed and supporters applauded as the senator shook attendees’ hands. The crowd stood up in a standing ovation, and Bill O’Brien, a former New Hampshire House Speaker and a co-chair for Cruz’s campaign, introduced Mr. Cruz.
As soon as Cruz took the microphone and began speaking, the audience was captivated. “Well, God bless the state of New Hampshire,” Cruz opened.
The senator spoke in a theatrical tone with hand gestures about his plans to reform the country. “I believe the central promise of 2016 is reigniting the central promise of America to that fundamental idea that our kids will have a better life than we do.” Cruz also believed that we currently have “misery, stagnation and malaise.”
He especially struck a chord with supporters when he criticized President Obama and the over-regulation of government. “How many of y’all have your cell phones?” Cruz asked. “Please leave your cell phones on. I want to make sure President Obama hears everything we say today.”
Cruz stated his support for federalism when he said, “We need to defend the 10th Amendment, or as President Obama would call it, the ‘what?’
The attendees showed the most support when Mr. Cruz spoke about “repeal[ing] every word of ObamaCare,” recalling all of Obama’s executive actions, unconditionally supporting Israel, abolishing the IRS, repealing Common Core, and ending sanctuary cities. “Amen”s followed when Cruz expressed the necessity to” defend religious liberty.”
However, the largest applause was when Cruz discussed the right to the Second Amendment. In his Texas drawl, Cruz said, “One of the things I love about the Granite State is that y’all define gun control the same way we do in Texas: hittin’ what ya’ aim at,” while pointing at the ceiling with two fingers in the shape of a gun.
Cruz compared our “misery” now to the problems in the 1970s with Jimmy Carter’s presidency. “It took Jimmy Carter to give us Ronald Reagan,” he said. Sent. Cruz claimed that we needed to experience the problems of Carter to recognize the need for a president like Reagan, essentially stating he is the Reagan of 2016 and Obama is President Carter.
In his speech, Mr. Cruz also quoted and referenced former president John F. Kennedy when discussing regulation and service, reciting JFK’s well-known statement: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
The senator focused on fear of the direct our country and errors of past democratic presidents, but also hope and aspirations for our country and for individuals under him as president.
Once he finished his “stump speech,” Cruz opened the floor to questions with: “I’m happy to answer or dodge any questions you may have.” As attendees asked their questions, he nodded attentively and kept eye contact, only looking away to take multiple sips of water from a straw in a plastic Bud Light cup filled with ice cubes.
When asked by an attendee how he felt the transgender community would fit into his version of America, he tried to appeal to libertarians voters, saying he “believes in freedom” and the “right [of Americans] to live out their lives.” Mr. Cruz so praised America for not trying to “impose [its] own views through political correctness, or anything else.”
In his closing statement, Mr. Cruz asked supporters to come to the polls on Tuesday, saying, “if we stand together, we will win.” He asked everyone to “vote” for him ten times by bringing nine other friends or family members to the polls. Mr. Cruz implored every supporter to pray “to pull this country back from the abyss.”
Once Mr. Cruz finished speaking, attendees swarmed him. Supporters came up to him, shook his hand, took a photo and expressed how their admiration of both his integrity and devotion to the Constitution. Even among the chaotic crowd, Mr. Cruz took a moment to pray with some of his supporters.
Mr. Cruz tried to have personal interactions and exchange a few words with all of his supporters. As attendees came up to him, Mr. Cruz asked them for their name. When speaking to the individual voters, he put his left hand on their shoulder, grasped their right hand and held eye contact. Despite his air of confidence and personable nature, each time the senator smiled for a photo, his lip quivered.
When asked if the press could move forward, Mr. Cruz’s team repeatedly stated that the media had to move to the back and could not ask questions, enforcing that “He needs to connect with the voters.”
