Cruz outshines Bush at Americans for Prosperity summit

COLUMBUS (AP) — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was the hands-down favorite of the Americans for Prosperity annual summit in Columbus, Ohio, this weekend, if the number and volume of ovations during the speeches of five presidential candidates who addressed the annual convention of tea party activists was the measure.

At the other end of the spectrum was former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a newcomer to events financed by conservative industrialists Charles and David Koch. Bush was attending his first Americans for Prosperity event and was greeted with respectful but restrained applause by a group that rose essentially out of Republican dissatisfaction with federal spending under his brother, former President George W. Bush.

Cruz, the tea party favorite since his 2010 election, sparked deafening cheers in the Columbus Convention Center auditorium even before he took the stage, entering to the 1980s power anthem “Eye of the Tiger.” During his speech Saturday, he went on to promise to “repeal every word of Obamacare,” and” rip to shreds this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal.”

Each of Cruz’s lines was met with applause and cheers from the more than 3,000 activists. Bush, who spoke a day earlier, worked hard but earned far fewer cheers, and mostly polite applause, from the anti-tax, economic conservative audience from around the country.

David White of Marietta, Ohio, was unimpressed with Bush.

“He did not articulate any plan for what he intends to do as president,” said White, of southeastern Ohio. “He used his time to try and rearrange perception of his record in Florida.”

Bush did stress his experience during eight years as Florida governor, noting tax cuts, reduction in the state government workforce and an overhaul in the state’s education system.

Cruz, on the other hand, laid out an agenda that consisted entirely of undoing actions taken by Democratic President Barack Obama.

The event is significant because it’s an opportunity for presidential candidates to impress the conservative group, which spent more than $30 million in advertising against Obama’s re-election in 2012 and has activists, donors and organizers in 36 states and an operating budget for 2016 of roughly $125 million.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who can trace his 2010 Senate election to tea party support, received hearty cheers, but less robust than Cruz, while taking a more policy-focused approach than Cruz’s more political diatribe.