As Nate Cohn wrote this week, Ted Cruz has almost no chance of winning the Republican nomination for president. But his first few weeks as a candidate have shown that he will be a formidable disruption for other candidates who need movement conservative support. His campaign announcement came in three phases: first, his people said that he would be giving a big speech the following Monday. Then, he preempted his own speech by tweeting his announcement that Sunday night. Finally, on Monday afternoon, he spoke in the round to thousands of assembled Liberty University students.
By breaking his announcement into three separate news events, Cruz put himself at the center of the political universe for a solid 36-48 hours. When he finally spoke, the mere fact that “Ted Cruz is running for president” was old news, leading to deeper coverage of his speech’s content, where he asked listeners to “imagine” an America where every conservative priority has been enacted, leading to a utopia of job-creation and adherence to wholesome values.
The conservative talkers and writers who spend their days dreaming up such fantasies ate it right up, broadcasting their fawning approval of Cruz’s ideological vision to their millions of dedicated listeners. Movement conservatives love thinking of themselves as beleaguered populists who the elites are always conspiring to bring down, so it only helped Cruz when mainstream commentators responded to his speech by saying that he has no chance of becoming president.
Then, it came out that Cruz raised $4 million for his campaign committee in the first eight days after his announcement, and that four super PACs aligned with him had raised $31 million.
Using this money and his legal status as the only candidate officially in the race, Cruz bought ads that ran during Easter weekend’s spate of Jesus-oriented programming on Fox News and NBC. For many of the traditionalist voters Cruz wants to unify, these highly rated programs are appointment viewing.
Keeping score, the Cruz campaign has shown:
1) an ability to manipulate events to get the best possible press coverage for appealing to base conservatives
2) an ability to raise serious money
3) the knowledge of where and how to use that money to boost awareness and enthusiasm among the voters he really needs
If Cruz becomes the unified choice of movement conservatives, elites will rally around Jeb as the best way to stop him, and mainstream alternatives will be snuffed out. These developments should be worrisome for Scott Walker and Marco Rubio.