We had the full one-hour speech shortly after Cruz gave it, and you can see the whole thing here. But SCF took about three and a half minutes of it, in which Cruz outlined why it is that the GOP leadership on Capitol Hill has been so unable to produce any deliverables to the conservative constituency which make such efforts to produce majorities in both the House and Senate over the 2010 and 2014 elections, and turned it into a web ad.

And the result is outstanding. No wonder Cruz’ speech engendered such bitterness among the party’s blue-bloods – to such an extent that even Rand Paul, who has been Cruz’ friend in the Senate (one of a relative few, at that), decried Cruz for all the “personal” animus he’s created. Cruz is absolutely hated in Washington by the majority of his colleagues, who see him as a grandstander. But of course from Cruz’ perspective he’s merely doing precisely what he said he would do when he was elected over the objection of the blue-bloods in Texas – he’s telling the truth and he’s fighting for principle.

He’s lost more battles than he’s won in his time in the Senate, but that’s to be expected given the circumstances he outlined in the speech.

Whether Cruz is able to ride a slow, steady path to the GOP nomination or simply remains in his Senate seat, SCF is using that speech in an attempt to spool up conservative candidates to challenge many of the 24 Republicans up for re-election in primary contests. Many of them need primary opponents in the worst way.

The 24 are…

Kelly Ayotte (New Hampshire)
Roy Blunt (Missouri)
John Boozman (Arkansas)
Richard Burr (North Carolina)
Dan Coats (Indiana) retiring in 2016
Mike Crapo (Idaho)
Chuck Grassley (Iowa)
John Hoeven (North Dakota)
Johnny Isakson (Georgia)
Ron Johnson (Wisconsin)
Mark Kirk (Illinois)
James Lankford (Oklahoma)
Mike Lee (Utah)
John McCain (Arizona)
Jerry Moran (Kansas)
Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
Rand Paul (Kentucky)
Rob Portman (Ohio)
Marco Rubio (Florida) retiring in 2016
Tim Scott (South Carolina)
Richard Shelby (Alabama)
John Thune (South Dakota)
Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania)
David Vitter (Louisiana) currently running for governor