Why did we lose? It wasn’t as the media would tell you: because the American people embraced big government, Barack Obama’s spending and debt and taxes… That wasn’t what happened. I’m going to suggest to you a very simple reason why we lost the election: We didn’t win the argument. We didn’t even make the argument.

— Texas Sen.-elect Ted Cruz (R-TX), advising the Republican Party to rebrand itself under a banner of “Opportunity Conservatism” during a sweeping speech that stoked speculation about a 2016 presidential run, Politico reports.