Cruz Mixes Humor with Tough Talk as Bus Tour Rolls Through Iowa
Ted Cruz is not particularly well-liked by colleagues in Congress and many members of his own party. George W. Bush, his former boss and fellow Texan, said of the Republican Senator, “I just don’t like the guy.” John Boehner, who resigned as Speaker of the House last fall, called Cruz a “jackass.”
Iowa voters, however, are seeing a different side of Mr. Cruz. Currently leading the polls in the country’s first voting state, he has flashed quick wits and aimed for likability as he continues a relentless, six-day, 28-town bus tour through the Hawkeye State.
On Saturday in Oelwein, already on his third stop of the day, Mr. Cruz asked supporters at an Italian restaurant, “Would it kill Republicans to crack a joke? Actually, I think some of them, it might.”
Although he embraces his alienation from his party’s establishment, Mr. Cruz has spared Republicans with his jokes, instead mocking such traditional campaign targets as regulators, the media and the Democrats — especially Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State and current Democratic front-runner.
At his first event on the “Cruzin’ to Caucus” tour, the Senator joked that the next Democratic debate would be held at Leavenworth, a penitentiary in Kansas, to “make it easier for Hillary to attend.”
A few hours later, Mr. Cruz flexed his quick-thinking muscles when the microphone stopped working at a stop at a steakhouse in Carroll. “Apparently the Obama N.S.A. has shut us down,” he said. When the trouble returned, he asked, “Mr. President?”
Later that night he used a dripping pipe at an event in Winterset to jab at the government’s spending policies. “The budget is so bad that the pipes are leaking,” he cracked.
Banking that authenticity will deliver him victory in the Iowa caucus, which is on Feb. 1, Mr. Cruz has embarked on the most ambitious tour through the state of any candidate thus far. Iowa is seen as especially important to the Cruz campaign, as more than half the state’s Republican caucus-goers are conservative evangelicals, a key constituency of the Senator. (His website homepage asks supporters to join the movement of “Courageous Christians.”) Building early momentum in this crowded field of Republicans is crucial, as Mr. Cruz could struggle to do well with the more moderate, significantly less religious New Hampshire voters one week later.
Mr. Cruz has framed himself as an “outsider” candidate unafraid to fight the establishment in Washington and defend core beliefs. Steadily rising in the polls, he could be in position to attract many of Donald J. Trump’s supporters, should the real estate developer, whose standing atop the Republican field has continued to flummox the political elite and journalists, falter.
In the meantime, Mr. Cruz has sought to tighten his support in Iowa by displaying his stringency on a range issues such as gun rights, abortion and immigration — as well as a penchant for sarcasm.
Four days into the tour, already on his fourteenth event, an attendee fainted, perhaps symbolizing the campaign’s doggedness. She quickly recovered, and Mr. Cruz reported, “The young lady heard the name Hillary Clinton, she immediately fainted.”
Commenting on a pile-up of reporters standing behind the bar at a pub on Jan. 5, he said, “I’m pleased to tell you there’ll be free drinks on the house, and The New York Times is picking up the bill.” Mr. Cruz has been very critical of the media throughout the campaign. At a debate held by CNBC last October, he said to sustained applause, “The questions asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media.”
Not all of the jokes are so off-the-cuff. A favorite is one about how he was once at an event comparing regulators to locusts. “You can’t use pesticides on regulators,” Mr. Cruz said. A farmer with a thick drawl begged to differ: “Wanna bet?” Central to his campaign is his “Five for Freedom” proposal to rein in regulators and shrink the size of government, calling for the elimination of five federal agencies.
The humor is apparently flowing both ways. At one event in Onawa on Jan. 5, one supporter approached Mr. Cruz and said, “I’m blind. But I can still see through Hillary Clinton.”
That, however, was not the most colorful comment Mr. Cruz has fielded on the tour. That distinction goes to the supporter in Osage who, to the audience’s delight, asked if Mr. Cruz had the “brass ones” to create real change as president. Mr. Cruz did not hesitate, affirming himself as the Republican standout “when it comes to strength of spine, or any other body part.”
