Ted Cruz ‘owned by Goldman Sachs,’ has ‘more in common’ with Hillary – Ron Paul

Senator Rand Paul may be out of the GOP race, but his father, former Texas congressman Ron Paul, does not want libertarians shifting their support to Ted Cruz. The elder Paul said Cruz has “more in common” with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

“You take a guy like Cruz, people are liking Cruz — they think he’s for the free market, [but] he’s owned by Goldman Sachs. I mean, he and Hillary have more in common than we [libertarians] would have in common with either Cruz or Trump or any of them, so I just don’t think there is much picking,” Paul said during a Fox Business interview when asked which candidate might inherit the so-called “liberty vote” constituency established during Paul’s presidential bids in 2008 and 2012.

The comments come four days before the next Republican primary in New Hampshire. Cruz, a Senator from Texas, is wooing the strong libertarian constituency in the state whose motto is “Live Free or Die.”

As of February 5, the Real Clear Politics poll averages show Cruz in third place in New Hampshire with 11.7 percent, behind Senator Marco Rubio (Florida) with 15.1 and Donald Trump with 31.1 percent. Barely trailing Cruz is Ohio Governor John Kasich with 11.1 percent, while former Florida Governor Jeb Bush rounds out the top five with 9.7 percent.

“[Libertarians] are going to have to go elsewhere, and unfortunately we don't have much democracy in this country, because the Republicans and the Democrats dominate,” Ron Paul told Fox Business host Stuart Varney. “You have to be an interventionist, you have to be an economic planner, you have to endorse the Federal Reserve, you have to do all these things in order to get to the top spot, because that's what the establishment wants. Otherwise, you can't finance the military industrial complex, you can't finance all this debt that the Democrats and Republicans run up."

Paul has long said third party routes are noble but impractical due to unfair election laws steered by the two major parties. The small Libertarian Party has yet to select its nominee. The former Texas Congressman did, however, find time to compliment the avowed democratic-socialist, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has challenged Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination.

“Well, strange as it may seem, on occasion, Bernie comes up with libertarian views when he talks about taking away the cronyism on Wall Street, so in essence he’s right, and occasionally he voted against war,” Paul said.

"It's hard to find anybody – since Rand is out of it – anybody that would take a libertarian position, a hardcore libertarian position on privacy, on the war issue and on economic policy," Paul added. “So I always say, you can search for a long time, but you’re not gonna find anybody in the Republican or Democratic primary that even comes slightly close to ever being able to claim themselves a libertarian.”

Aaron Day, the chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, has supported both Ron and Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky). Even though the younger Paul suspended his presidential campaign this week, Day is still considering voting for him anyway.

“Some Rand people are saying: You know what? He’s on the ballot. I’ll vote for him,” Day told The Washington Post.

“And some people I’m talking to are saying, screw it, I want to burn down the establishment and vote for Trump. He’s antithetical to the liberty movement, but that’s what they feel,” Day said.