Two Southern conservatives, who both rode the Tea Party train to office and were unafraid at times to cut the umbilical cord to Republican leadership, are both now the first candidates to announce their presidential ambitions for 2016.
Rand Paul, who announced his candidacy this morning, and Ted Cruz, who announced on March 23, are two senators who not only share some analogous stances on domestic and foreign policy, but have actually worked together to stymie Democrats’ advances on legislation, and even turned up to each other’s marathon filibuster attempts two years ago.
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But now that the competition has been established, each has wasted no time throwing shade at the other in attempting to differentiate or one-up himself in the run up to the 2016 election. As this landscape shifts, here’s a look at how Cruz and Paul compare on a number of points, from campaign videos to current wedge issues.
Campaign announcement
Cruz became the first official 2016 hopeful last month when he made an announcement on Twitter. The social media maneuver was seen as part of his stated efforts to appeal to a “new generation of courageous conservatives.” The 30-second accompanying video offered a brief glimpse into Cruz’s vision of America, replete with a montage of a church, a baseball game, and fluttering flags. The junior Texas senator and former lawyer followed the tweet with a sermon-esque campaign announcement at Lynchburg, Virginia’s Liberty University, the world’s largest Evangelical school and a beacon for young Christian fundamentalists.
The venue choice and campaign video both highlighted Cruz’s staunchly religious ideals and conservative upbringing in Houston, where his father also serves as a suburban pastor and director of Purifying Fire Ministries. While Cruz has kick-started his campaign with a bang — raising $4 million in funds in the first two weeks — his announcement was partially overshadowed by questions about the Canadian-born candidate’s constitutional eligibility to serve as commander-in-chief of the US armed forces, as well as his announcement of his likely decision to sign up to the affordable healthcare system, which he has brazenly sought to dismantle since its inception.
Related: A Brief Guide to Ted Cruz’s New Presidential Campaign
Paul, on the other hand, decided to unveil his presidential ambitions closer to home in Louisville, the largest city of his seat of Kentucky today. The former ophthalmologist, whose father, Ron Paul, twice ran for president as a Republican candidate and once on the Libertarian ticket, has notably positioned himself against “the Washington machine,” in the two and a half minute campaign video preceding his campaign launch.
Like Cruz, Paul is also racing to court a new generation of GOPers with his left-libertarian leanings and liberal views on drug laws, criminal justice, and privacy being a source of fresh appeal to young people. At the same time, these stances, including some foreign policy platforms at odds with senior party members, have the potential to alienate members of his base and more conservative voters. Now, as the race to the White House gains momentum, Paul is looking to caulk his perceived weaknesses, including by appealing to the religious right and strengthening his position on national security and defense spending, which has seen a full turnabout in recent months.
Indiana’s religious freedom law
Last week, when Indiana began to face fierce criticism over its new religious freedom law, Paul, who was supposedly enjoying a family vacation in Kentucky, notably refrained from comment. Meanwhile, Cruz leapt to the defense of Indiana Governor Mike Pence, who was forced to “clarify” the former law that activists said would give businesses the legal means to discriminate against the LGBT community. Cruz’s sentiment was shared by several other congressional Republicans and presumptive presidential candidates, including Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
The filibuster
In 2013, Cruz and Paul decided to stonewall separate sets of legislation, six months apart, by engaging in the political talk-a-thon known as filibustering. Armed with comfortable shoes, both took to the floor to ramble on and off topic for several hours, with the senators even briefly joining each other on the floor in a show of support.
In March, Paul delivered a close to 13-hour speech on reasons why John Brennan should be denied the top job at the CIA. In it, he cited Shakespeare, drone strikes on Americans, and soiled his tie while chomping down on a mini Mars candy bar.
The Kentucky senator’s most random quote of the night came, however, as he challenged America’s targeting of US citizens abroad in drone strikes.
“Are you going to just drop a hellfire missile on Jane Fonda?” He asked about the American actress known for her activism during the Vietnam War.
In September 2013, Cruz spent more than 21 hours on the floor talking about the need to defund Obamacare. In his speech, the Texan senator famously read Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham to his children, quoted from the Bible, and spoke of his penchant for White Castle burgers in his admonishment of the healthcare law.
Points for creativity and length go to Cruz, who made a marathon theatrical stand and beat Paul time-wise by more than eight hours. Despite both efforts, Brennan was appointed CIA director and Obamacare received funding.
In the polls
With only two declared candidates, it’s still early days in the presidential race, but in terms of favorability, it appears Paul’s got an early bump on Cruz, with 7 and 4 percent of Republicans indicating their support for each candidate, respectively, according to a March McClatchy-Marist poll. These figures lag behind presumptive candidates Bush and Walker, who received 19 and 18 percent support among those polled, respectively, in the same survey — though neither has declared his candidacy.
Tea Party Republicans showed similar levels of backing for Paul and Cruz, with 7 and 3 percent support, respectively — a surprising turn of events considering Cruz’s superstar status among the conservative group, which appears to be waning. Among conservative Republicans, both are tied at 6 percent support, but Paul has won favor with moderate Republicans, with 13 percent saying they’d support the Kentucky senator, compared with just 1 percent who favored Cruz.
Iran nuclear deal
Both Cruz and Paul have assumed finger-waggling stances on the US’ framework nuclear deal with Iran, which was delivered last week amid much protest from Congressional Republicans, who have sought to work-around the international negotiations for several months. Both Cruz and Paul were also among the 47 senators who signed a controversial letter last month addressed to Iran’s leadership warning that any agreement would not hold past Obama’s last day in office.
Since the tentative accord was announced last Thursday, Paul has refrained from commenting, while Cruz joined the chime of Republican voices condemning the deal, describing it as a threat to the US and allies in the region, such as Israel.
Fashion
It’s hard to jazz up “cheap suits and bad haircuts,” as Cruz, 44, once described the style of Capitol Hill’s fashion-behind politicians. But even Cruz, who often sports a pair of black ostrich-skin cowboy boots and baggy, oversized shirts, is scoring ahead of Paul, who has been chided more than once for wearing dowdy “dad jeans” and turtlenecks to important fundraisers, and to one of the most essential annual gatherings for right-wingers, the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Climate change and the environment
Cruz, an infamous climate change denier, has many times refuted scientists’ findings that the world is getting warmer as a direct result of man-made carbon emissions.
“The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming,” Cruz said in a 2014 interview with CNN. “Contrary to all the theories that they are expounding, there should have been warming over the last 15 years. It hasn’t happened.”
Since being appointed the chairmanship of the Senate Space, Science, and Competitiveness Subcommittee earlier this year, Cruz has also told NASA engineers to focus more on space and less on the earth, which was met with some protestation from the agency’s administrator.
In recent months, Paul, who comes from the heart of coal country in Kentucky, has staked a more middle-ground approach to the environment, saying he believes the science behind climate change is “not conclusive.” Simultaneously, Paul has sought to steer away from being branded a climate skeptic, saying such debates should be left to scientists, not politicians, as “scientific debate should not be dumbed down to politics.”
