Ted Cruz is getting a big boost from conservative insiders

[applegrove]

Ted Cruz is getting a big boost from conservative insiders

by Rob Garver, The Fiscal Times

http://www.businessinsider.com/ted-cruz-is-getting-a-big-boost-from-conservative-insiders-2015-11

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The Heritage Action analysis renders judgment on candidates’ positions across six different areas: growth, opportunity, civil society, limited government, favoritism, and national security. It contains significant criticism of every one of the 12 candidates it considered, except for Cruz.

(While some of the criteria seem self-explanatory, others may not. The civil society assessment, for example, is dependent on whether a candidate is in line with Heritage on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, among other things. Favoritism encompasses subjects as wide as reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank and immigration policy.)

This is very good news for the Cruz campaign. Heritage Action is the political arm of the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. It wields considerable power and influence in Congress, keeping a scorecard of votes meant to embarrass conservatives who stray from what the organization considers the ideal. But Heritage Action’s reach extends beyond Washington, feeding into the grassroots conservative support system that any eventual GOP will need to rely on in 2016.

Heritage Action was careful not to give the impression of delivering an explicit endorsement in its 50-page analysis of the individual candidates’ positions. In a report that virtually cries out for an overarching graphic presentation of its findings or at least an executive summary, there is nothing beyond a table of contents directing readers to each candidate’s results. The candidate sections are equally businesslike, offering no introduction or conclusion, just an assessment of the candidate on the six listed criteria.



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