Ted Cruz

Ted loves you. He'll love you even more if you ignore the Constitution.

Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (born December 22, 1970) is the junior United States Senator from Texas. Elected in 2012 as a Republican, he is the first Cuban-Canadian American to serve as a U.S. Senator from Texas. The term serve is used loosely, because he is running for President of the United States, and while running for President, he has very little time to fulfill his duties as a Senator.

Several analysts are concerned about his hopes in the current Presidential election because he does not actually qualify to be President in as much as he was born outside the United States as a Cuban Canadian, and the Constitution mandates that the President must be born within the US as a natural born citizen, but because that didn't stop President Obama, Cruz believes it will not be an issue for him either.

Early life

For those without comedic tastes, the so-called experts at Wikipedia have an article about Ted Cruz.

Cruz was born to Eleanor Elizabeth Darragh Wilson and Rafael Bienvendo Cruz in Toronto, Canada on December 22, 1970. At the time Ted was born, his father worked in the oil industry in Canada hiding from fear of revenge due to the fact that he tried to kill JFK by giving him a condom. Rafael Cruz Sr. owned a company that processed seismic data for oil drillers and he was very gifted at processing the data until the oil drillers got the results they wanted. He had learned how to process data from his time in Cuba fighting with Castro's good ol' boys as an interpretation specialist. Any information that needed to be reinterpreted or processed went through Rafael Cruz Sr. before being sent out through official channels. Ted's Father left Cuba in 1957 to attend the University of Texas where "I got me some learnin'", as he would say on graduation in one of his humorous attempts to imitate a Texas drawl.

Cruz's mother, Eleanor Wilson Cruz, was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware, of Irish and Italian descent, and she has the typical temperament of someone with that heritage, or at least the temperament of an average mother. Although she did not raise Ted "by hand" as was common in the early 18th century, she did know how to keep her children in line with a very motherly glare. It is not clear how or when she met Ted's father. That is apparently something that the family doesn't talk about.

After processing enough seismic data that they had a tidy little nest egg, the Cruz family returned to Texas where Rafael Cruz Sr. became a fire-and-brimstone preacher and Ted was raised as devoutly as is humanly possible. It was during this time when Ted got his current moniker, which as Captain Obvious would quickly point out, is Ted. In high school, Ted had been out with some friends on a Friday night and he missed his curfew by 45 minutes. Rafael Cruz Sr., who had been waiting up for his son (then called Rafael Jr.) met Ted as he walked in the door and confronted him about his tardiness, and an argument ensued. At the close of the argument, Rafael Sr., who still had problems with a mix of Cuban, Texan, and Canadian accents, yelled these parting words; "Rafael Edward Cruz, I cannno' believe that you would defy me an' yer mama like this, eh. You're TED to me." The name stuck.

Education

Though Cruz graduated from law school with flying colors, these were not those flying colors.

Cruz graduated from a Christian high school and went on to attend Princeton and Harvard Law School (pronounced Haaaavaaad). While on Christmas break during his first year at Harvard, Ted lost his first debate. He was in a restroom at a Sears store, when another man started to leave the restroom without washing his hands. Somewhat upset by the man's disregard for hygiene, Ted stopped the man and said, "At Haaavaaad, they teach us to wash our hands after we use the restroom."

The man replied, "Well, at Austin Peay State, they teach us not to pee on our hands."

Despite knowing that his position was correct, Ted had no ready reply for this man. He vowed then and there that he would study debate day and night until he had mastered it. He would take no chance that he would ever be tongue-tied again. With all the vigor of his new-found determination, he began to tirelessly pursue the conservative agenda taught to him by his parents. Although he differed often from his professors' political views, his professors could not refute his logic, and he graduated from Harvard Law School with flying colors.

Early career

Ted piddled around at several positions before setting his sights on the presidency.

Clerkships

Everybody needs a secretary or clerk to dump all their crap work on, and in his early career, Ted was just such a guy. He clerked for a circuit court judge or two before becoming the rug that William Rehnquist walked all over. Ted excelled as Supreme Court floor-mat extraordinaire.

The Venerable George W. Bush

After Chief Justice Rehnquist had put enough footprints on Ted's back, Ted became an adviser for presidential candidate George W. Bush. Back in the election against Al Gore with the whole dangling chad fiasco, Ted was George Bush's very own dangling chad. In fact, Ted was the council for the Bush Campaign in the Supreme Court case of Bush vs. Gore. But given that Ted had previously been employed as the official Rehnquist lackey, the Gore camp really didn't stand a chance.

After George Bush took office, as a thank-you, Ted was given a position in the Justice Department as a Subordinate Apprentice Junior Assistant Associate Deputy Attorney General, 3rd Class. Despite having won the Bush vs. Gore case, the Bush administration felt that Ted still needed to gain valuable experience climbing the ladder at the Justice Department. Ted was at the bottom again.

Texas Solicitor General

Ted got really good at soliciting. He is seen here using one of his best puppy-dog faces.

After he had fetched enough cups of coffee at the Justice Department, Ted was able to solicit a job from the Texas Attorney General as Solicitor General. Historically, the term solicitor referred to a lawyer who argued cases in a court of equity, as opposed to an attorney who appeared only in courts of law. However, with the these courts disappearing or being subsumed under courts of law, solicitors had become obsolete by the late 19th century. So, Ted had a role more in line with the current use of the term solicitor. Whenever the Attorney General needed something, Ted went out and begged for it.

Ted excelled at this job, and when not begging on behalf of the Texas Attorney General, he went out and begged for his own campaign contributions. In fact he got so good at this kind of solicitation (not so much the illegal kind...don't ask) that he was able to outspend both of his opponents by a sizable margin as shown below, and landed himself the job of Texas Junior Senator.

Candidate (party)	Receipts	Disbursements	Cash on hand	Debt
Ted Cruz (R)	$9,053,212	$7,600,914	$1,452,297	$795,000
Paul Sadler (D)	$139,197	$108,442	$30,753	$12,197
John Jay Myers (L)	$6,139	$547	$5,591	$0
Apparently Libertarians are really lousy at solicitation, which upon deeper consideration, doesn't make a lot of sense.

Despite being a very good solicitor, Ted is very bad at economical spending. Although his campaign accounted for 98.5 percent of the total election expenditures, he was only able to purchase 56.6 percent of the votes. With that kind of spending record, Ted was perfect for the Senate. He left his post as solicitor and went to Washington.

Acting career

For eight years, Ted played the character "Kevin Malone" in the successful TV-series The Office (2005-2013). Several critics praised his method acting. "Cruz perfectly embodies the fat, stupid idiot. In contrast to Ted in his real life, Kevin seems almost relatable", one critic wrote.

Ted the Senator

“Truly, you have an astounding intellect.”
~ Captain Obvious on Ted Cruz

If the Senate had a Committee on the Obvious, Ted would be the ideal chairman for that committee. He has a knack for telling the people stuff they already know. Here are a few of Ted's more enlightening quotes during his time in the Senate:

"There is no place in the Democratic Party for practicing Christians." (The party that promotes abortion, gay marriage, and legalized marijuana, let me ponder on that for a bit.)
"Your world is on fire." (With wacko terrorists spewing hate, and US unfunded liabilities totaling over $1,000,000 per tax payer, this just might be true.)
"I believe that our soldiers should be allowed to carry firearms." (You might be on to something there, Ted.)
"The Dr. Seuss book Green Eggs and Ham is very cool." (As any kindergarten student will tell you.)
"We need to remain a nation that doesn't just welcome but that celebrates legal immigrants who come here seeking to pursue the American Dream." (Like you did, Ted.)
"The American free market system is the greatest engine for prosperity and opportunity that the world has ever seen." (As if North Korea or ISIS could put forth some kind of a close second.)
"I'm also the son of my mom." (That alone should be a reason to vote for him.)
"My touchstone for every question is the Constitution." (OK, maybe this one doesn't fit.)
"I was bitten by an octopus." (What?)

Presidential bid

Many analysts think that if Ted can overcome the birth issue, he stands a very good chance of becoming the next president. When looking at Ted's attributes and those of the current president when he was running for office, they match up quite well.

Attribute	Barack Obama	Ted Cruz
Went to Haaavaaad	Yes	Yes
Studied Law	Yes	Yes
Good camera face	Yes	Yes
Served as Junior Senator	Yes	Yes
Held no executive position of any type prior to becoming president	Yes	Yes
Born outside the United States	Yes	Yes
From a minority race (or at least his father was)	Yes	Yes
Good at soliciting	Yes	Yes
One of "those" wives	Yes	Yes
Forged birth certificate	Yes	Pending

Because of the obvious similarities, analysts think that everyone who voted for Barack Obama will be clamoring to vote for Ted Cruz.

Contingency plans

Assuming Ted can't make the whole constitutional birth issue go away, he has several contingency plans:

Constitutional amendment: (We've had so many of those lately, Ted should be able to get that pushed right through.)
Use his association with William Rehnquist to get the Supreme Court to declare that the Constitution is unconstitutional.
Stage a coup. (US citizens are so oblivious 90% probably wouldn't notice anyway.)
Annex Canada.