CLINTON, Iowa (AP) – Iowa Republican Sharon Gilbert thinks her party veered off course in the past two presidential elections by nominating candidates who were too moderate.
This time around, the 73-year-old Gilbert wants to send a staunch conservative into the general election, and she thinks Texas Sen. Ted Cruz might be that candidate. But she also has a nagging feeling that Cruz’s hard-line views and combative style might keep him from getting anything done in Washington, a city where he’s frustrated his own party’s congressional leaders as much as – if not more than – the Democrats.
“I know he’s very far to the right, but I hope that he could work with both sides,” says Gilbert, who attended a town hall event with Cruz in her hometown of Clinton. “We don’t know that now because he’s been against Washington.”
It’s a central question of Cruz’s campaign as he gains momentum in the Republican primary: Can the uncompromising conservative unite a polarized nation and work with what he’s derisively called Washington’s “cartel” of career politicians, lobbyists and special interests?
Asked by a voter this week how he’d persuade Washington to follow his lead, Cruz said he planned to remake the way the nation’s capital works instead of trying to succeed within the current system.