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RNC Fundraises Off Ted Cruz

First-quarter fundraising from 2011 gave no indication that Cruz would be the eventual GOP Senate nominee in Texas. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo)
First-quarter fundraising from 2011 gave no indication that Cruz would be the eventual GOP Senate nominee in Texas. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is an advocate of the big-tent approach to grow the GOP, but apparently he isn’t above grabbing onto Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s coattails if it can help fundraising.

An RNC fundraising email dated today at 4:06 p.m., titled “I Stand with Ted” and coming from Priebus, invokes Cruz’s name and his “fight to defund ObamaCare.” Cruz was on the floor at the time advocating the repeal of the president’s key legislative accomplishment.

“Join me and stand with Ted today,” says the email, which asks recipients to sign up and “tell Harry Reid to defund ObamaCare immediately.” And of course, at the end of the email is a “Contribute Now” button.

While the embrace of Cruz is understandable, it seems at odds with the thrust of the RNC’s Growth & Opportunity Project report, which included the following statement:

“The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself. We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue.”

“Our standard should not be universal purity; it should be a more welcoming conservatism.”

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