Cruz borrows a gun for appeal to hunters
WASHINGTON — It's an image football fans in Iowa are likely to see this weekend: Ted Cruz, his face smeared with black greasepaint, sitting in a Louisiana duck blind with a borrowed shotgun.
His Republican presidential campaign said Tuesday it's spending $700,000 to air a gun-friendly ad during the NFL conference championship games.
Cruz has made the defense of Second Amendment rights a cornerstone of his presidential campaign, touting his past legal work fighting against gun control laws. But records suggest the 45-year-old politician's passion for the issue emerged relatively recently in his life, coinciding with his ascent in Republican circles in Texas.
Cruz was in Louisiana last week to film a campaign video with Phil Robertson, the gray-bearded patriarch of reality TV's “Duck Dynasty” clan. The junior senator from Texas, clad in camouflaged overalls, is shown squeezing off a couple of rounds toward the gray sky. It was not clear whether the candidate struck any ducks.
Looking into the camera, Robertson says his selection criteria for endorsing a candidate include “would they kill a duck, put 'em in a pot and make 'em a good duck gumbo.” He then tells Cruz, “You're one of us, my man.”
In his three years in the U.S. Senate, Cruz's voting record has earned an A+ rating from the National Rifle Association. Fiery criticism of President Barack Obama's efforts to tighten background checks for gun purchases is a staple of Cruz stump speeches: The candidate quipped that back in Texas the term “gun control” means that you “hit what you're aiming at.”
According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Cruz purchased his first hunting license there in 2006, when he would have been 35. He then bought licenses in three of the last 10 years — 2008, 2014 and 2015.
Cruz's campaign said he purchased a Louisiana hunting license before the recent video shoot with Robertson, though the state's wildlife department refused last week to confirm that.
Records from Iowa show he also bought licenses in 2013 and 2015 at the Hole N' the Wall Lodge, site of an annual pheasant hunt hosted by U.S. Rep. Steve King, typically attended by aspiring GOP presidential contenders. King has since endorsed Cruz and is now a co-chairman of his campaign.
