Sen. Ted Cruz privately told a group of donors in New York this past summer that Sen. Rand Paul can’t be elected president.
That’s the lead nugget in a New York Times piece examining the relationship of the two tea party stars. It’ also the first published piece of evidence showing a breach between the two colleagues who are in agreement on the substance of most issues but are heading towards a potential collision course in 2016.
[W]hen Mr. Cruz went to New York City to meet with donors this summer, he privately offered a different view of Mr. Paul: The Kentucky senator can never be elected president, he told them, because he can never fully detach himself from the strident libertarianism of his father, former Representative Ron Paul of Texas.
Word of Mr. Cruz’s remarks reached Mr. Paul’s inner circle, touching off anger and resentment.
An aide to Paul said that while Rand and Cruz genuinely like each other, their friendship wouldn’t impact the senator’s decision to run.
“Kelley Paul is the one that matters,” said the aide.
The same, is likely to be assumed of Cruz, who has been more coy about his own obvious presidential ambitions.
But a Cruz-Paul slugfest could be just the formula for a more moderate GOP figure — like Chris Christie or Marco Rubio — to slide up the middle and capture the nomination. It’s a scenario not dissimilar to the fissure that Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich experienced in the 2012 primary fight against Mitt Romney.
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