Cruz’s opening targets Christian conservatives

LYNCHBURG, Va. – Launching his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas asked Christian conservative voters to imagine a United States without the IRS, “Obamacare” or abortion – and to imagine they can make that happen by supporting him.

His aspirational appeal on Monday, aimed at America’s most conservative voters, could quickly run into challenges in winning over moderate voters – and eventually deep difficulties in governing should Cruz win the White House.

But it’s a message that Cruz, the first major 2016 contender to declare himself a candidate, is expected to emphasize forcefully in the coming year before voters start to pick nominees.

“God’s blessing has been on America from the very beginning of this nation, and I believe that God isn’t done with Americans,” Cruz declared at Liberty University, a Christian school founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell.

“I believe in you. I believe in the power of millions of courageous conservatives rising up to reignite the promise of America. And that is that is why, today, I am announcing that I am running for president of the United States of America.”

Cruz won’t be the sole GOP contender for long. Two Senate colleagues, Kentucky’s Rand Paul and Florida’s Marco Rubio, are eyeing campaign launches soon.

The 44-year-old Cruz is betting his White House hopes on profoundly conservative voters and their opposition to policies they find abhorrent.

Within such circles, there is deep distrust of the IRS, which was revealed last year to have been scrutinizing tea party groups’ nonprofit status.

Scuttling President Barack Obama’s health care legislation, called by some “Obamacare,” is a rallying cry, as well. And abortion is a major issue for Christian conservatives who have tremendous sway in the lead-off caucus and primary election states of Iowa and South Carolina.

During his 30-minute kickoff speech, delivered like a sermon without notes or cue cards, Cruz made clear he sees electoral potential in his unbending advocacy.

“Today, roughly half of born-again Christians aren’t voting – they’re staying home,” Cruz said. “Imagine, instead, millions of people of faith all across America coming out to the polls and voting our values.”

Following his election to the Senate in 2012, the former Texas solicitor general quickly established himself as an uncompromising figure willing to take on Democrats and sometimes Republicans, too. Divisive within his own party, he won praise from tea party activists for leading the effort to shut down the federal government during an unsuccessful bid to block money for the health law.

But the partial government shutdown was not widely popular, and Democrats signaled that it would be central to their criticism of the first-term senator.

“His reckless approach to governing would make life worse, not better, for Americans and he isn’t the type of fighter that America’s middle-class families need,” Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a statement.

The son of an American mother and Cuban-born father, Cruz would be the first Hispanic president.

To the enthusiastic crowd, he urged students to “imagine a president that finally, finally, finally secures the borders.”

By getting in early – in a late-night message on Twitter and then his kickoff speech – Cruz was hoping to claim ownership of the influential corner of the Republican Party for whom cultural issues are supreme.