Ted Cruz: Savior or bane of the Republican Party? AMES, Iowa - For 30 long seconds on a Saturday in early August, Ted Cruz stood silent and beaming, as hundreds of conservative activists showered him in warm, heartfelt applause inside a dimly lit auditorium. Then he started up again. "And that reaction right there," he declared, pointing at the crowd with his thumb and forefinger together, "shows how we win this fight. If I were sitting in the Senate cloakroom, the reaction to that statement would be fundamentally different. I don't know that I'm quick enough to dodge all the things that would be thrown at me. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is renouncing his Canadian citizenship. Does this mean he's going to run for president? The public battle between pragmatists and ideologues is tearing apart the GOP. OFA has begun demonstrating in favor of Republicans who publicly support a new path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Texas Republican responds calmly as hecklers disrupt meeting to rally support for defunding Obamacare. And just like that, Cruz summed up his first seven months as a U.S. senator and exposed the conundrum he represents for his party: a hero to the base and worry for the establishment. Cruz, 42, is a full-bore conservative Republican from Texas whose certitude and combativeness in defense of his positions has made him a rock star to the GOP's most conservative activists. The comment that brought the crowd to its feet was about shredding Obamacare at all costs. But that certitude and combativeness also has made him one of the most controversial figures in the Senate, a lightning rod for both public and private criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. The question many are left to ponder as Cruz travels the country targeting the president's health-care law is what can he realistically hope to achieve in a Senate steeped in tradition and hierarchy as an eloquent yet sharply polarizing figure. The question is an increasingly important one as Cruz is now frequently mentioned as a 2016 presidential contender. This week he released his birth certificate amid questions from some who doubt whether he is eligible to be president since he was born in Canada. But Cruz makes the point that he was a U.S. citizen at birth (his mother was an American born in Delaware) and he promised Monday to renounce whatever right he has to Canadian citizenship. The 2016 speculation also has been driven by the amount of time Cruz has been spending in early presidential nominating states like Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire. Cruz has already made two trips to Iowa this year and will make a third in October. On Friday he will be in New Hampshire to headline a fundraiser hosted by the state GOP. But he cautions that not too much should be read into those travels. "In my view, it is way too soon for anyone to be focused on the 2016 presidential election," he said. Cruz insists his focus is "100 percent" on the Senate, but that is proving a trickier play. Not a "social club" "Extreme," "wacko bird" and "over the line" are some of the words Cruz's Senate colleagues have used to describe him publicly. He has shown none of the traditional deference that junior members of the Senate often adopt when dealing with their more senior colleagues. In one now-infamous encounter, Cruz tangled with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a longtime gun-control advocate, during a Judiciary Committee hearing in March. A staunch gun-rights defender, Cruz peppered Feinstein with questions about the Constitution until, in exasperation, she replied: "I'm not a sixth-grader. Senator, I've been on this committee for 20 years. That confrontational approach has not endeared him to many in the Senate, but Cruz said he will not shy away from defending his principles. "I like and respect my colleagues, but the Senate isn't a social club," he said.