No Cruz-Paul ’16?

Senator Ted Cruz calls his colleague Rand Paul a “good friend.” The two men are the stars of the Tea Party movement, propelled to Washington by activist fervor and allied in their effort to restrain the reach of the federal government.

Right from the start
You were a thief
You stole my heart
And I your willing victim
I let you see the parts of me
That weren’t all that pretty
And with every touch you fixed them

But when Mr. Cruz went to New York City to meet with donors this summer, he privately offered a different view of Mr. Paul: The Kentucky senator can never be elected president, he told them, because he can never fully detach himself from the strident libertarianism of his father, former Representative Ron Paul of Texas.

Now you’ve been talking in your sleep, oh, oh
Things you never say to me, oh, oh
Tell me that you’ve had enough
Of our love, our love

Word of Mr. Cruz’s remarks reached Mr. Paul’s inner circle, touching off anger and resentment.

And the incident further inflamed a rivalry that has been quietly building as the Republican Party tries to grapple with the force and power of its Tea Party wing. Both Mr. Cruz and Mr. Paul harbor presidential ambitions and view themselves as representing a new, more energized movement of Republican activists. But they are pursuing distinctly different paths as they try to rise, diverging not just in style but in their approach to intraparty politics.

Just give me a reason
Just a little bit’s enough
Just a second we’re not broken just bent
And we can learn to love again
It’s in the stars
It’s been written in the scars on our hearts
We’re not broken just bent
And we can learn to love again

Mr. Cruz and his aides believe he is uniquely suited to galvanize conservatives, pointing to his leadership of the effort to cut off funding for the Affordable Care Act — confrontational, pugnacious, disdainful of President Obama. Mr. Cruz, 42 — a Texan, a born-again Baptist and son of an evangelical preacher — also connects naturally with Christian conservatives, many of whom have become foot soldiers in the Tea Party and view Mr. Paul as too unorthodox on social issues.

Mr. Paul’s inner circle privately derides Mr. Cruz as “the chief of the wacko birds,” echoing a phrase from Senator John McCain of Arizona. And, while allowing Mr. Cruz to lead the charge on Obamacare, the Kentucky senator has quietly been reaching out to more establishment forces within the Republican Party, trying to prove to big donors and mainline Republican organizations that he is more than a Tea Party figure or a rerun of his father’s failed candidacies.

I’m sorry I don’t understand
Where all of this is coming from
I thought that we were fine
(Oh, we had everything)
Your head is running wild again
My dear we still have everythin’
And it’s all in your mind
(Yeah, but this is happenin’)

The divergent strategies undertaken by Mr. Cruz and Mr. Paul not only put them on a collision course should they both pursue presidential candidacies. They also could help determine whether the Tea Party — right now a muscular and rebellious force within the Republican Party — remains at war with the establishment or is eventually more smoothly integrated into the party apparatus.

Mr. Paul and those close to him are confident that his die-hard libertarian-leaning supporters will not desert him, and that gives him freedom to build bridges beyond that base.

“He’s becoming a translator between the grass-roots conservatives and the establishment,” said Trygve Olson, a consultant who bridges the two wings. He then added an implicit dig at other Republicans: “He’s actually demonstrating leadership.”

You’ve been havin’ real bad dreams, oh, oh
You used to lie so close to me, oh, oh
There’s nothing more than empty sheets
Between our love, our love
Oh, our love, our love

The standoff over health care and the shutdown also highlighted the personal differences between the two men and how they are viewed within the Senate: Mr. Paul is more easygoing and speaks casually as he makes his points with fellow senators. Mr. Cruz, his colleagues complain, often seems like he is lecturing them — or, as one put it, “still on Hannity’s show.” While Mr. Paul was overheard on a hot mike plotting strategy with Mr. McConnell, Mr. Cruz was receiving tongue-lashings from his Republican colleagues at private senators-only luncheons. Mr. Paul mixes with a range of senators at the weekly Republican luncheons; Mr. Cruz tends to stick close to his fellow hard-liner Senator Mike Lee of Utah.

Nowhere is the competition between the men more obvious than in the crucial state of Iowa, where Mr. Paul was the most sought-after speaker in the state earlier this year in the aftermath of his filibuster over the use of drone strikes, but where Mr. Cruz is now surging after his starring role in the shutdown battle. He was the headline speaker at the Iowa Republican Party dinner late last month.

Just give me a reason
Just a little bit’s enough
Just a second we’re not broken just bent
And we can learn to love again
I never stopped
You’re still written in the scars on my heart
You’re not broken just bent
And we can learn to love again

Both appeared at a gathering of pastors in Des Moines this summer and spoke at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter summit meeting last month in Washington. The day before that meeting, they addressed a private meeting of a few dozen of the country’s leading Christian conservatives. Attendees said that Mr. Cruz, who was joined at the closed-door meeting by his pastor father, had the more compelling presence, but that Mr. Paul’s wife, Kelley, impressed the group by “talking in our kind of language,” as one participant put it.

Mr. Paul clearly has more to prove than Mr. Cruz among evangelicals, who remember his father’s libertarianism and are suspicious of his positions, like his support for reducing sentences on drug users and allowing the states to decide whether to legalize same-sex marriage.

Oh, tear ducts can rust
I’ll fix it for us
We’re collecting dust
But our love’s enough
You’re holding it in
You’re pouring a drink
No nothing is as bad as it seems
We’ll come clean

Mr. Paul and his advisers are acutely aware of such unease and are taking steps to address it. Most telling, perhaps was an exchange involving Mr. Paul, who was raised an Episcopalian, at the end of a pastors’ luncheon in May in Cedar Rapids.

“One of the pastors said to Rand, ‘We’ve beat all around this, I don’t want to beat all around this anymore, let’s be real specific: Would you define yourself as born again?’ ” recalled David Lane, a Christian conservative organizer. “He said, ‘I’m born again.’ ”

Still, Mr. Lane underscored the advantage Mr. Cruz has with some evangelicals. Asked about the Texas senator’s faith, he responded, “Cruz is obviously born again and goes to First Baptist Houston.”

Just give me a reason
Just a little bit’s enough
Just a second we’re not broken just bent
And we can learn to love again
It’s in the stars
It’s been written in the scars on our hearts
That we’re not broken just bent
And we can learn to love again