John Shinkle/POLITICO Cruz on Romney: No need for 'mushy middle'

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz took a swipe at Mitt Romney on Monday, saying that Republicans’ path to the presidency doesn’t cut through “the mushy middle.”

Cruz was asked about Romney, the GOP’s 2012 nominee, by reporters following the senator’s keynote address at a Heritage Foundation summit.


“There are some who believe that a path to Republican victory is to run to the mushy middle, is to blur distinctions,” Cruz said. “I think recent history has shown us, that’s not a path to success. It doesn’t work. It’s a failed electoral strategy. I very much agree with President Ronald Reagan that the way we win is by painting with bold colors and not pale pastels and I think that’s gonna be a debate Republicans are gonna have over the next two years.”

“It is certainly a debate that I intend to participate in vigorously,” the first-term Texas senator added.

Cruz also called on the Republican majority in Congress not to back down from the agenda on which its members ran and laid out a 10-point plan for the country that included renewed efforts at repealing Obamacare and abolishing the IRS in a keynote address at the Heritage Foundation on Monday afternoon.

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“We need to do everything humanly possible to repeal Obamacare,” including a Senate vote on full repeal followed by piecemeal votes on repealing the least popular components of the Affordable Care Act, Cruz said on the first day of a two-day summit branded “Opportunity for All: Favoritism to None.” (Heritage also laid out an agenda in a book of the same name.)

Cruz is one of about two dozen conservative lawmakers scheduled to address the summit, including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a potential rival for the GOP presidential nomination.

The senator also hit other conservative hot-button issues — calling for approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, passage of balanced budget and term limits amendments to the Constitution, auditing the federal reserve and repealing the Common Core educational standards.

Cruz ended his remarks with a criticism of the Obama administration’s foreign policy, characterizing it as too soft on Iran’s nuclear program and on Islamic terrorism. “They target the West,” he said, “and yet you cannot win a war against radical Islamic terrorism with an administration that is unwilling to utter the words radical Islamic terrorism. These were not a bunch of ticked-off Presbyterians.”

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He also called out the lack of high-level American representation at a Sunday solidarity rally in Paris in response to the murder of 12 people, including journalists at the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, by extremists last week.

“How sad was it in the streets of Paris when 40 world leaders walked down the street, absent was the United States of America,” said Cruz. The administration had said it was a mistake not to send a high-ranking official to the rally.

Earlier Monday, Heritage President Jim DeMint struck an outsider tone in his opening remarks, which focused on economic policy. “Those who call themselves progressives in Washington are the protectors of the status quo,” he said. “They will fight to hold every inch of ground that they have taken from freedom.”

Echoing the rhetoric of populist liberals like Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, DeMint, a former South Carolina senator, called Heritage-backed conservatives “the real progressives” and cast them as opponents of a prevailing system of “crony capitalism” that favors Wall Street banks and other well-connected interests.

The foundation’s policy book puts forth an agenda that includes repeal of the Renewable Fuels Standard and the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law, ending the Head Start program, raising the age of Medicare eligibility and granting Congress power over major regulations now issued by executive agencies.

The book also calls for making the District of Columbia schools system an all-charter district and gives shout-outs to disruptive innovations like UberX and food trucks, arguing that government should stay out of their way.

The mood in the room was reserved, with conference attendees also expressed the view that Heritage’s conservative policy agenda faced an uphill battle. “It’s not clear how much … consists of items that can be enacted,” said George Pieler, 63, a Republican lawyer.

Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, president of the Islamic libertarian Minaret of Freedom Institute, said he was “not really” optimistic that the agenda would become law. “[DeMint] talked as if it’s only the Democrats who are engaging in cronyism,” he said. “I think it cuts across party lines.”

Paul, the Kentucky senator, and GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah are scheduled to speak Tuesday on the second and final day of the conference.

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