Fun fact: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, fiery lawmaker and the person who bears the closest living resemblance to the guy from “American Dad,” was born in Canada.
Another fact: Cruz announced just after midnight today on Twitter that he is running for president of the United States. He'll be announcing his run later today at Liberty University in Virginia.
This makes Cruz the first 2016 contender whose campaign plans are official, public business. Much speculation has been made about the intentions of bigger players like Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, and Govs. Scott Walker and Chris Christie, but none of them have said anything yet — publicly. Right now, Cruz is the only one we can be sure of.
The thing about Cruz is he’s very, very conservative. Like, hard-right, Tea Party pin-up conservative. He’s got charisma. He’s got great hair. He’s got almost the same name as a movie star — if only Tom Cruise decided to take up politics — but his views only sometimes approach anything resembling mainstream political thought.
His brand of being really conservative is exemplified really well in his choice of announcement venue: Liberty University. The university was founded by the late Jerry Falwell, a fundamentalist thinker and megachurch preacher known for his extreme-right stances.
For one, he opposed divestment from apartheid South Africa, opposed Brown v. Board of Education because it blurred a “line of distinction” drawn by God and once said “so-called gay folks would just as soon kill you as look at you.”
I don’t mean to insinuate Cruz agrees with these viewpoints — after all, Falwell was only chancellor and president of the university until his death eight long years ago. To wit, it seems like the new chancellor and president of Liberty University — Jerry Falwell Jr. — continues his father’s right-wing legacy without most of the racist baggage. Instead, LU has diverted its resources to the more agreeable tenets of the late Falwell Sr.’s philosophy. For example, LU got in a bunch of trouble in 2009 because it revoked recognition of its College Democrats chapter. Perhaps they felt the presence of card-carrying democrats on campus would threaten the prestige of its Center for Creation Studies.
Much of the whining that goes on about Republicans is either exaggerated or undeserved. The fact that we have only one party to represent each side of a vast political spectrum ensures this, and sometimes it’s fun to lob insults and jibes at each other simply because they sit on the other side of a mostly imaginary line. But Cruz is the real deal. The potency of his ideology separates him from most potential Republican candidates, and he probably outstrips all but the staunchest conservatives you know.
Other potential candidates from both parties have been taking it easy; they’re protected from attention and scrutiny because they haven’t outed themselves as contenders yet. It’s a deliberate strategy meant to keep from burning out or slipping up until the minute the show starts. Imagine how the Clinton email thing would have panned out had she been officially running.
But Cruz ain’t having any of that. He’s gone and blown the right’s load early, 20 months ahead of the election. Until now, 2016 has been a distant event, shrouded in mystery and, for the candidates, careful exploration. Cruz just jolted everyone from this dreamlike state, declaring the race has started. It’s really doubtful that he’ll win — anyone as far from the mainstream as he is, left or right, probably won’t sit in the Oval Office. But, thanks to him, the race to find out who will is on.
Alec Carver is a UF history sophomore and the opinions editor at the Alligator.
[A version of this story ran on page 7 on 3/23/2015 under the headline “Ted Cruz’s candidacy announcement signals start of 2016 presidential race”]
