Question Number Ten

Who is Ted Cruz? Until recently, I was busy keeping track of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, so that question was low on my list of priorities. However, when Cruz finally decided to endorse Trump the other day, I decided to download this e-book by J I Mason, whose exact identity is never revealed. As another reviewer has already pointed out, “Ted Cruz: The Candidates 2016” could have needed a better editor, but if you manage to read through it (I did so in one sitting), it may give you some insights into the man and his politics. Or at least the man, since his politics are mentioned mostly in passing!

The book speaks for itself, but some things stand out and seem to be relevant for Cruz' conduct during the primaries. Already as a teenager and young adult, Cruz had the reputation for being extremely ambitious and cocky, a brilliant and crafty debater, and an inflexible free market/minimal government conservative. He was intelligent and loved by his tutors at Harvard and elsewhere (one of his teachers was liberal Alan Dershowitz!), but in his chosen careers of politics and law, he was intensely disliked by many. Cruz has a peculiar combination of ideological inflexibility and a lawyer-like tendency to “prove” whatever he wishes to prove this week (compare Dershowitz again). Mason exposits in some detail on the legal cases Cruz took on as solicitor-general of Texas or as a privately practicing lawyer. Cruz' conduct in the US Senate during the “federal shutdown” crisis is perhaps the low point of his career, and not without its frankly bizarre moments. And then, maybe not, since Cruz eventually became the only serious challenger to Donald Trump in the recent GOP primaries! Clearly, *somebody* likes Ted Cruz…

Cruz realized that the Tea Party movement had a substantial portion of the conservative Republican grassroots behind them, and acted accordingly. His inflexible ideological stances (“defense of the Constitution”), attacks on both Democrats and establishment Republicans in Congress, and strong religious faith soon made him popular on the plebeian right. His cocky lobbying of establishment figures and rich donors (including one George Bush Sr.) secured his position. Cruz' well-heeled and well-connected wife Heidi Cruz also contributed. He was an “outsider” and member of the “Kamikaze caucus” in Congress, and yet nevertheless an establishment hanger-on. It's obvious that he doesn't have the support of “the people” (as opposed to the Tea Party). Cruz won the Texan primaries for the Senate by relying on crafty maneuvering, and the voter turnout was only 8%. The book cuts off the story immediately before the recent presidential primaries, but it's intriguing to note that Rafael Edward Cruz (Ted's real name) argued already as a teenager that he could run for president despite being born in Canada!

His conduct during the Republican primaries seems to have been “vintage Cruz”. All the elements are there: the boundless self-confidence and ambition (running for the presidency at the age of 45), the lawyer-like maneuvering in place of real popular support (caucuses and bickering over delegates), the dogmatic inflexibility (his refusal to endorse Trump at the RNC) but also the ability to mobilize the support and devotion of the conservative grass root element. It's interesting to note that his recent endorsement of Trump is strongly ideological in character, but also that it comes shortly after RNC chair Reince Priebus threatened to stop everyone who doesn't support Trump from running in future primary elections. Both ideological conviction and personal ambition may have played a role in the endorsement. Another interesting fact is that, according to Mason, many suspect that Cruz' real ambition is to become Supreme Court judge, a suspicion which has resurfaced again after the Trump endorsement. Indeed, a place on SCOTUS would be the crowning achievement of an ambitious former Supreme Court clerk who worships the Constitution. If Trump (or anybody else) wants to endure Cruz for the next 40 years or so, may be another matter entirely…

One thing is certain. We probably haven't seen the last of Rafael Edward Cruz. For good or for worse.