Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) fired up a friendly crowd of Christian conservatives at the annual Values Voter Summit on Friday with a speech that called on attendees to “vote Harry Reid out” this fall and for Republicans to defend their values.
{mosads}“If you want to defend the First Amendment or free speech or religious liberty, vote Harry Reid out,” he told the crowd, drawing a standing ovation for his call for Republicans to take back Senate control and end the Nevada Democrat’s time as majority leader.
Cruz also urged Republicans to stick to their social conservative roots, even as many in the party have begun to embrace same-sex marriage and forms of contraception that are often controversial among the conservative base.
“Some people say for Republicans to win, we have to abandon values,” he said, prompting a person in the crowd to shout, “Lie!”
“That’s right,” he replied.
Cruz told the crowd that if they win this fall, Republicans will “stand for life … for marriage … for Israel” and “abolish the IRS” and “repeal Common Core,” prompting fierce applause from the crowd at each declaration.
And he predicted the GOP would win the White House in 2017 and sign legislation “repealing every word of ObamaCare.”
Cruz, a potential 2016 presidential contender, has long been a favorite of the religious right, and he looked at home among them on Friday, delivering a speech that at times took on the cadence and tones of a sermon as he walked about across the stage.
The senator quoted Psalms 30:5, “Joy cometh in the morning,” and drew parables from persecuted Christians across the world today to instruct the crowd to stand by their values.
“This is a time of great crisis,” he said, “but it is no greater than the crisis that so many of us have faced in our own lives.”
He also shared emotional personal details that he had previously not publicized, of his parents’ struggles with alcoholism and his father’s abandonment of the family when Cruz was a young boy. Cruz’s father, Rafael, is a reverend and a popular figure among conservatives.
“My dad decided he didn’t want to be married anymore. He didn’t want a son. So he left us,” Cruz told the crowd.
He said his father came back to the family after he became a Christian, and that the experience taught him “faith is real.”
“If it were not, I would have been raised by a single mom, without my dad,” he said.
He also at times delivered jabs to Democrats, calling the Democratic Party “an extremist radical party” and blasting President Obama as failing to stand up for Christians who are being persecuted for their faith globally.
Cruz also suggested former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner if she runs for president in 2016, debate the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic group targeted for its opposition to forms of contraception required under ObamaCare.
After receiving a rock star’s reception from the crowd, Cruz closed his speech in true rock star style — he jumped from the stage, directly into the crowd, to a scrum of enthusiastic supporters rushing to shake his hand.