Texas senator key to GOP effort to flip senate control
SPARTANBURG, SC (KTRK) -- It's Main Street in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and sitting in a small group talking policy is Texas senator Ted Cruz. Cruz is there ahead of the midterm elections.
"The election is an opportunity to change course," says the first term junior Senator, who's been traveling the country as a Republican mouthpiece in the effort to flip control of the United States Senate. "I think we have an extraordinary opportunity right now to retake the U.S. Senate and to retire Harry Reid as majority leader. Republicans need six seats to do so."
Cruz has made a name criticizing Democrats, his mantra, well-received by conservative Republicans.
"The Obama, Clinton, Kerry foreign policy has been essentially a photo op foreign policy," he says with a voice that has him among key Republicans working to drive turnout in key races.
In South Carolina, last month, he met with various civic groups, local leaders, and interested residents.
And for the first time during the 2014 election season, his wife, Heidi, traveled with him.
"It's exhilarating," she told Eyewitness News, "When you spend time with people that you've never met before and you sense a common bond."
That "bond" was evident among some of the people attending Cruz events during his time there.
Bryn Stroyke told us, "I think he should be the next President of the United States."
It was a sentiment echoed by a woman who posed for a photo with Cruz. "You may be our next president," she told Cruz, who thanked her with a hug and handshake."
Cruz won't commit to such ambition, yet. He's too busy working on 2014 at the moment. "After the election," he said, "We'll move into 2015 and 2015 and very quickly the discussion will start about the next election cycle. That time will come. But right now my focus is on the senate."
Eyewitness News asked Cruz, "What are you hearing about 2016 from people as you travel to some of these key states? What are they saying to you? It has to come up.
"It comes up all the time. There is urgency about this next election in 2016," he answered. "The stakes have never been higher. It is now or never."
Cruz is a politician who stays on message. He did during the 2012 Senate race in which, as a relatively unknown attorney who'd served as the state's Solicitor General, beat favored Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst in the primary and then won the general election.
"What I've tried to do in the senate race here in Texas," he explained, "and the time that I've served in the senate is two things. Number one is -- do what I said I would do. And number two, tell the truth."
It's that approach to politics, perhaps, that has made him a rising star.
Dean Glossop was among the few dozen in the audience at a question and answer session in a school auditorium in Spartanburg. He stood and applauded Cruz at several points during the hour long session.
"Senator Cruz seems to be one of few people in Washington who doesn't really, necessarily go around using soft ambiguous language to answer questions." said Glossop, "You pretty much know where he stands."
We heard that from others too, including the former state party chair, Barry Wynn. He told us, of Cruz, "He's somewhat charismatic and he's got a little humility too to go along with his bright, intelligent mannerisms. I think he's well respected and he certainly has the notoriety."
At a tailgate party on the university campus in Clemson, South Carolina, visitor Colleen Stroyke said, "Oh, I think he's fantastic. He's so clear. He's so outspoken. He's so aligned with how I think."
Heidi Cruz said she's not surprised by the national reaction to her husband, which seems in many ways to equal the connection he has with voters in his home state.
"I think he speaks for what he believes in and a lot of people find that they agree with what he's saying. It's very real," she said."
Cruz, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, is smooth. He never uses notes when he speaks publicly, instead sticking to well-rehearsed remarks. He seems laser-focused on issues important to Republican voters, most obviously his criticism of Democrats in congress and President Barack Obama's administration.
"The worse things get the more optimistic I get," he said. "Because sometimes I think things have to get really bad to wake people up. I think people are waking up all over the country."
