Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was the keynote speaker at the annual Values Voter Summit, a who's who of conservatives in politics, fresh off of his star making marathon speech deriding the Affordable Care Act; the summit happened to be taking place in Washington during a government shutdown that Cruz was an advocate for, according to USA Today.
Not everyone in attendance was excited to see the newly famous Senator. A few hecklers calling out for Cruz to support immigration reform were booed by the crowd while Cruz insinuated that they were Obama staffers trying to cause mischief, according to the Huffington Post.
"It seems President Obama's paid political operatives are out in force today," Cruz said. "And you know why? Because the men and women in this room scare the living daylights out of them."
In his speech Cruz lauded the audience for helping fuel the fight against the health care reform law that is President Barack Obama's signature piece of legislation, according to CBS News.
"It is because of you that the House of Representatives has been standing strong, because the House has been listening to the people," Cruz said. "It is because of you that for the past two months the country has engaged in a national debate about the enormous harm Obamacare causing... it is because of you that the American people are energized and we see the Obama administration defending positions that are utterly and completely unreasonable."
Cruz's remarks were peppered with references to how the Obama administration and the left were living in fear of "the American people." According to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll respondents blamed the Republican Party for the government shutdown by a 53 percent to 31 percent margin, CBS News reports.
The summit has become a place for the rising stars within the Republican Party to make a name for themselves, especially those with presidential aspirations. The event is thrown by the Family Research Council. The president of the FRC, Tony Perkins, said that he considers Ted Cruz to be one of the key conservative leaders in the government alongside Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., according to USA Today.
If the summit is thought to be a proving ground for potential presidential candidates it is notable that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has often clashed with the far right of his party, was not invited to speak, USA Today reports.
While Cruz is treated like a rock star at events such as the Values Voter Summit he has failed to garner much support outside of the Republican Party, including many of the independents needed to swing an election, as only 14 percent of those surveyed said they had a positive opinion of the first-term senator from Texas, according to CBS News.
"Ted has tapped deeply into a vein in the Republican body politic, but it's not the entire body. It's an important vein," Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for former President George W. Bush, told CBS News. "What he's doing that's remarkably and troublingly different from what Ronald Reagan did is his approach is to split and divide. Ronald Regan's approach was to grow and multiply.
"To be successful you need to grow the party, multiply the party, and be a conservative as a result," Fleischer said.
