2016: Ted Cruz to Speak at South Carolina Tea Party Convention

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) will be a featured speaker at the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention on Sunday, January 18.

Joe Dugan, executive producer of the three-day event, told Breitbart News on Thursday that Cruz will join a pantheon of Tea Party favorites who will address the three day convention in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, including Dr. Ben Carson, Representative Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), Representative Louis Gohmert (R-TX), and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA).

“I think true conservatives like Senator Cruz are very astute in reaching out to the grassroots at this early stage,” Dugan told Breitbart News about Cruz’s decision to speak at the South Carolina event.

“These are the people who will control the ground game before the all important South Carolina GOP Presidential primary. These are the people who will knock on the doors, and man the phone banks with a zeal and persistence that Establishment big money cannot buy,” Dugan said.

“They also happen,” Dugan added, “to be the best politically educated force in the country because they have been listening to expert speakers for 4 years and are not fooled by the constant deceit and deception emanating out of Washington.”

Dugan also took a shot at the more establishment friendly Conservative Political Action Conference, which will be held in March in the Washington, D.C. area.

“So I asked [our South Carolina Tea Party activists] on social media tonight, when we made the announcement about Sen. Cruz, ‘Who would you rather see? Chris Christie and Jeb Bush at CPAC or Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and Rick Santorum at the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention?’ ”

Both Cruz and Carson are rumored to be considering runs for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination.

The most recent polls show both men in the top ten of potential Republican candidates, but neither are in the top three.

Of twelve potential Republican Presidential candidates polled in most national polls, only Cruz and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) have been elected to office with strong Tea Party support.

Though the Tea Party saw few electoral victories in 2014 (Representative Dave Brat’s (R-VA) primary upset of former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor being a notable exception), the political positions espoused by the very successful Republican candidates who rode a wave to victory in the November general elections largely reflected Tea Party limited government values.

Tea Party activists, however, have been disappointed with the conduct of the Republican Party leadership, which has failed to use the power of the purse to stop President Obama’s extra-constitutional usurpations of Congressional authority in numerous areas. The most recent uncontested power grab came after the November elections, when Obama announced an executive action that, in effect, grants amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.

Cruz, first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012, has been a leader among the minority of Republicans in Congress who have advocated a more muscular opposition to the Obama steamroller.

Cruz’s father was born in Cuba, but came to the United States in 1957. Arriving without any financial resources, his first job was washing dishes. He worked his way through the University of Texas, started a small oil company, and now works as a preacher.

Cruz’s mother was born in Delaware, graduated from Rice University, and was an early computer programmer.

Cruz himself attended Princeton and Harvard Law School. He served as the Solicitor General of Texas before launching an underdog grassroots powered campaign to win first the Texas Republican primary and then the general election for the U.S. Senate in 2012.