In Texas, Rand Paul meets Cruz and a Bush

DALLAS, Texas (CNN) -

Texas is a vast and diverse state with sprawling urban centers and wide open pastures, but sometimes the political universe here can feel pretty small.

Rand Paul, the Kentucky Senator and Republican presidential aspirant, was reminded of this on Friday.

Arriving in Dallas at the outset of a multi-day visit to the state, Paul spent Friday meeting with a handful of financial supporters and assorted Republican politicians. On leaving the office of one of the city's GOP donors, Paul bumped into a familiar face: Ted Cruz, his fellow Senator from Texas and another ambitious Republican who is courting grassroots conservatives in advance of a possible presidential bid.

Cruz was walking in to meet with the very same donor. The two senators, who have something of a chilly relationship, exchanged hellos before Paul went on to his next stop.

Though Paul crossed paths with one of his rivals, his visit to Texas was hardly a risky mission behind enemy lines. Paul grew up outside of Houston, attended Baylor University and pays frequent visits to his mother and father, the former congressman and libertarian icon Ron Paul.

As he put it on Friday, "I speak fluent Texan."

Paul's first public appearance here was on friendly political turf: He headlined a rally in Dallas for a Republican candidate named Don Huffines, a family friend and real estate developer who is mounting a primary challenge against an entrenched state Senate incumbent with appeals to the tea party, libertarians and evangelicals. They were joined at the event by author and radio host Glenn Beck, a Dallas resident who spent the afternoon with Paul.

Trying to stir a polite crowd of several hundred supporters inside the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Love Field, the mild-mannered Huffines delivered a cascade of tea party bromides aimed squarely at the fiery conservative base that has come to dominate Republican politics in Texas.

"I will not compromise my faith in God," Huffines said. "I will not compromise my Constitutional convictions. I will not compromise my core beliefs in liberty."

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In Texas, Rand Paul meets Cruz and a Bush