Viguerie Argues Cruz Is The First Movement Conservative Candidate Since Reagan

With Sen. Ted Cruz’s in the race for president, the 2016 cycle has a fresh conservative dynamic, according to ConservativeHQ chairman Richard Viguerie.

In a column, Viguerie argues that Cruz is the “first top-tier movement conservative candidate” since Ronald Reagan.

Viguerie argues there are three reasons for his comparison to the Gipper.

First, is his ability to unite all three elements of the old Reagan coalition; national defense conservatives, economic conservatives and social conservatives with the new fourth leg of the 21^st century’s winning conservative coalition – the constitutional conservatives of the Tea Party movement.

Others, such as Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal and Rand Paul may have some appeal to elements of that coalition, but no one unites it the way Ted Cruz does.

The other two reasons focus on Cruz’s connection with regular Americans and his willingness to engage as a conservative in the “battle of ideas.”

Second, is Ted Cruz’s understanding of and almost spiritual bond with America’s country class – the voters outside the Beltway who have looked with alarm at Obama’s fundamental transformation of America and seen not a spending bill to be negotiated or a deal to be cut, as the Republican establishment does, but an existential threat to American exceptionalism and the future of constitutional government that must be resisted at every turn.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, are Ted Cruz’s zest for the battle of ideas between conservatives and progressives in both political parties and his intellectual gifts for fighting it.

According to Viguerie, with Cruz as the great conservative crusader, voters will have a distinct choice in the voting booth between “policy grounded in the thought of the modern conservative movement and the Washington deal-making that has often corrupted Republican campaigns of the recent past.”

He concludes implying that the DC establishment fears the conservative fervor for Cruz, writing the that there was a “shiver” from them during Cruz’s announcement.