WASHINGTON Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has a lot of work to do re-assembling the Reagan coalition.
Just a little over a week after he told an enthusiastic conservative audience that the key to a 2016 presidential win was the Reagan formula including the GOP base, blue collar workers and Democrats, Cruz bombed with a core audience: organized labor.
At the International Association of Fire Fighters Legislative Conference and Presidential Forum this morning, Cruz, who is considering a 2016 run, gave a similar speech to one he made before the Conservative Political Action Conference. Only his standard punch lines and attacks on the Obama Administration were met with silence.
“Our country right now is in crisis,” said Cruz, citing a poll that found 65 percent of Americans think their children will have a life worse than their own.
Like he did at CPAC, Cruz invoked the Reagan Revolution of citizens, including labor and Democrats, who rose up and elected Ronald Reagan in 1980. But when he spoke about the “Reagan Democrats in this room,” he didn’t get a reaction.
Cruz touched on income inequality, blaming “the 1 percent of the rich and powerful” who benefit from big government. “Wages are stagnating. People are hurting,” he said.
Cruz spent a lot of time talking about the need to bolster small business with tax reform and regulatory reform. “Two-thirds of all new jobs come from small businesses,” he said.
In what is usually a hit line with his conservative audiences, Cruz said, “We have more words in the IRS tax code than we do in the Bible. And not one of them is as good.”
He did get a few chuckles by saying that the IRS should be abolished and that 100,000 IRS agents be put “all along the southern border.” “You’d have people turn around and go home.”
Cruz blasted the health care law as a job killer. “We need to repeal every word of Obamacare,” he said and gave examples of businesses in Texas who were keeping the number of employees under the 50 count threshold to avoid compliance.
On the 2nd Amendment, Cruz said, “In my home state of Texas, gun control means what you aim at.”
Cruz also spoke out about the threat of “radical Islamic terrorism” and criticized the lack of leadership by the Obama Administration, especially the U.S.’s current negotiations with Iran over development of nuclear weapons.
The Texas senator is one of 47 senators who signed a letter to Iranian leaders saying whatever agreement was struck by Obama could be undone by Congress and the next president. Obama’s term expires in January 2017. Cruz said that “a deal will only accelerate Iran getting a nuclear weapon.”
Cruz, who spoke without notes and walked around the stage, was greeted with polite applause and the ballroom full of fighters stood at the beginning and end. But it was hardly an ovation.
“You can tell he’s a preacher’s son,” said firefighter Rex Pritchard of Long Beach, Calif. But he added, “I can’t imagine us supporting him. He didn’t talk about any firefighter issues.”