What has happened to Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)? After graduating from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, this debate champion, known for taking on his liberal professors such as Alan Dershowitz, went to work as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist.
Within only a few years, Cruz would himself be arguing cases before the Supreme Court as the solicitor General of Texas. In 2012, Cruz was elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas embracing the ultra-conservative TEA party platform with a promise to shakeup Washington.
In the Senate, Cruz quickly made a name for himself by helping to cause a government shutdown by railing against President Obama’s healthcare reform law in a 20+ hour speech on the Senate floor.
By 2015, Cruz became the first candidate to announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. And it is here that Cruz’s inspirational story and rocket career trajectory took a dramatic turn. Despite Cruz’s constant criticism of the Obama Administration, his defense of traditional marriage, as well as his very popular pledge to abolish the IRS, there was a looming threat to Cruz’s popularity with Republican voters that he didn’t see coming.
On June 16, businessman and reality TV star, Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign. Before wrapping up the Republican nomination, Trump would not only nickname Cruz, “Lyin’ Ted”, and refer to the Senator by this unflattering nickname over and over again, but Trump would threaten Cruz’s wife, insult her appearance and without proof link Cruz’s father to John F. Kennedy assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Trump’s constant attacks on Cruz and his wife, eventually resulted in Cruz angrily calling Trump a “sniveling coward” and telling Trump to "leave [his wife] the hell alone." Cruz promised to beat “Donald for the [GOP] nomination" and made clear that Trump had “an issue with women” and feared them. Cruz’s retorts to Trump’s attacks were ineffective and on July 19, Trump easily won the 1,237 delegates needed to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee.
But it's 2018 now, and Senator Cruz is running for reelection against a surprisingly popular Democratic challenger, Congressman Beto O’Rourke (D-TX). An average of the most recent polls show O’Rourke within single digits of Cruz. Texans haven’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994.
Cruz, who once called Trump a “pathological liar”, says he has put his disagreements with Trump aside and is “proud to lead the effort to bring Republicans together.” Cruz has personally reached out to Trump and asked the president to campaign with him. President Trump has in return tweeted that in October he will be holding a major rally for Cruz at the “biggest stadium in Texas” he can find.
Wait, what? Trump won the 2016 Republican presidential nomination by attacking Cruz’s wife, citizenship, and integrity. How can Cruz simply put that all aside and embrace Trump? The intellectual conservative, righteous Senator Ted Cruz is long gone. He has entirely sold his soul in the name of winning reelection. Cruz has desperately chosen to embrace a man who not only does not share his conservative views, but has slandered him and his family. Cruz’s quick embrace of a “sniveling coward” and “pathological liar” in order to win an election gives Texas voters another reason to not vote for him.
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