The two leading contenders for the GOP presidential nomination were a study in contrasting style in dueling speeches at an annual Tea Party convention in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Saturday.
Sen. Ted Cruz's tone and delivery mirrored that of a Sunday sermon. Donald Trump's seemed more geared toward a Saturday night bar crowd. (He opened his remarks by thanking the dozen or so Myrtle Beach motorcycle bikers who stood outside cheering for him.)
In his speech, Cruz made no mention of Trump. But the Texas senator wasn't ignoring his rival: Cruz mocked Trump's Twitter account in a conversation with reporters earlier in the day. "I think in terms of a commander-in-chief, we ought to have someone who isn't springing out of bed to tweet in a frantic response to the latest polls," Cruz said.
Trump, who appeared before the same audience two hours later, took the freshman Texas senator head on, targeting Cruz's failure to report to the Federal Election Commission nearly $1 million of loans from Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to fund his successful 2012 Senate campaign.
"You give a campaign contribution to Ted Cruz, and you get whatever the hell you want," the billionaire businessman said. Cruz supporters immediately began booing him. "Excuse me, excuse me," Trump interrupted back. "Say whatever you want — he didn't report his bank loans."
"Disgusting, rude and obnoxious," was how Cruz supporter Betty Wood, from suburban Atlanta, reacted after Trump's speech. Trump backer Aileen Milton, from Florida, disagreed. "Cruz deserved it — he's a politician like all the rest of 'em," she said. Despite their differing reactions to the two candidates, Wood and Milton conceded that their second choice would be Trump or Cruz, respectively.
Trump leads in most Republican national polls. But he is locked in a battle for first place with Cruz in Iowa, an evangelical stronghold where caucusgoers will kick off the 2016 presidential voting on Feb. 1.
Trump is also leading the GOP field in New Hampshire, where independents and centrist Republicans are key constituencies. Cruz's campaign is hoping that momentum in Iowa will help him in South Carolina, where polls show Trump with a big lead ahead of the Feb. 20 Republican primary. It's a state where small-government fiscal conservatives have at least as much clout as social conservatives.
