Cruz: 'A lot of Republicans Tend to Have Top Down Soviet Style Campaigns'

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) told reporters at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans Saturday that too many Republican campaigns rely upon “top down Soviet style” campaigns to win their elections.

(video courtesy of ConservativeIntel.com)

Cruz gave his own race for Senate as an example of how to avoid that mistake, saying, “Folks from Texas will recall in my race for Senate, conventional wisdom was it was impossible. We couldn’t win–and we saw a coalition from the grassroots being outspent 3 to 1 and young people, in particular, we saw the passion of young people online on social media, knocking on doors, getting on phone calls and empowering them.”

He later went on to explain, “The campaign we used as our model was Barack Obama’s 2008 primary campaign against Hillary Clinton. Because Hillary, at the time, was just like my opponent and almost impossible to beat–incumbent with all the money and all the infrastructure, all the party bosses. What Obama did in 2008 is the most remarkable political thing in modern times. He ran a grassroots scrappy campaign that had young people in particular empowered. It was their fight. And you didn’t have some campaign guru telling him what to say.”

Cruz addressed the RLC crowd earlier on Saturday, telling attendees that the country is at a time period presently similar to the late 1970’s, when President Jimmy Carter was in office and most believed he would defeat Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election.