Marc Fisher - The 2016 Contenders--Ted Cruz

by Marc Fisher

Ted Cruz looked out over a sprawling audience of Iowa farmers and agribusiness leaders, people who rely on federal subsidies of ethanol, and the man who would be president stuck it to them.

I know youd like me to say Im for the renewable fuel standardthats the subsidy of their productthatd be the easy thing to do, he said. But Im going to tell you the truth. Hed take away their subsidy, he said with a big smile.

The farmers sat on their hands.

A week earlier, in a vast ballroom at Marylands National Harbor, where blood-red conservatives gathered to evaluate a showcase of Republican presidential wannabes, Cruz was again the steely man of principle. He railed against Washington, slammed his opponents (Hillary Clinton embodies the corruption of Washington) and asked the true believers to demand of their candidates, When have [you] been willing to stand up against Republicans? The son of a Cuban man who saw what happens when freedom is stripped away swore that Ill die before I let it happen again.

This time, the crowd stood as one, roaring with admiration and hope.

His father describes Cruz as a modern Jeremiah, delivering the final warning before the collapse, sending an unpopular but vital message. His Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz calls him off-the-charts brilliant. Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican and unsuccessful presidential candidate, once dubbed Cruz a wacko bird. His own wife says Cruzs supreme certainty had a way of being irksome.

It is Cruzs ramrod devotion to principleor, its flip side, an unyielding insistence on getting his waythat could propel him to the front ranks of Republican contenders for president or render him unelectable.

Cruz, 44, was a marvel in high school, a kid who memorized the Constitution and wowed audiences with his speaking skills. In college, he was a prodigy and a pest; the same people who avoided having dinner with him went out of their way to watch him debate. As a politician, the senator from Texas is what hes always beena lightning rod for controversy, a stickler for process, an evangelist for conservative principle, a constitutional wonk in ostrich-skin cowboy boots.

Those who find his newly announced presidential campaign thrilling and those who find the notion of Cruz in the White House disturbing agree that his devotion to principle reminds them of that of Barry Goldwater, the movement conservative and 1964 Republican presidential nominee who famously said Id rather be right than president and got his wish.

Beneath Cruzs mesmerizing speaking stylemidnight-smooth delivery, never ruffled, even as he drops lacerating lines about the evils of Obamacareand his unthreatening appearancesuits, slicked-back black hair, baby-faced complexionhow the senator would govern remains unclear. Is he a rigidly uncompromising originalist or, as Cruz argues more like Ronald Reagan, who preached conservative populism but governed as a dealmaker?

Although his father often proudly introduces his son guaranteeing that Ted will not compromise, Cruz says he follows Reagans approach: Push for limited government, but take what you can get. Despite the popular caricature of him as inflexible, Cruz says, If they offer you half a loaf, you take itand then come back for more.

Then Cruz volunteers a story that might help you understand me.

Its senior year in high school, just before homecoming, and the kids at the rival school in Houston have managed to steal the school flag from Cruzs Second Baptist School. Cruz, the valedictorian, calls three buddies and says its time to exact revenge. They buy 36 rolls of toilet paper, three cans of shaving cream, toothpaste and shampoo. That night, they paper the gym at Northwest Academy, leaving behind a Hallmark card inscribed, in lipstick, with the message, Its not nice to steal.

The janitors at Northwest spy Cruz and his gang and give chase. With Wagners Ride of the Valkyries blaring on the cassette deckthe guys knew it as the attack theme from Apocalypse NowCruz drives the getaway vehicle, the Green Bomb, his 1978 Ford Fairmont. Alas, the men from Northwest take down Cruzs license plate number. The next day, he is called to see the principal.

Cruz fesses upyes, it was his car, his TP job. But asked to name his accomplices, Cruz calmly replies, Im not going to tell you.

I figured youd say that, the principal says. He pulls from his desk drawer a letter he has written and signed, asking the admission office at Princetonwhich has already accepted Cruzto rescind their offer.

Cruz will not budge. I consider it a matter of character and integrity not to rat on my friends, he says.

Whereupon the principal calls Cruzs father, who tells his son, Ted, just get out of high school. The son explains his devotion to the no-snitching principle, and Rafael Cruz accepts the argument. Youre right, and Im proud of you, his dad tells him.

As it turned out, the principal had already identified the other culprits. The letter to Princeton was never sent. Cruz had stood talland won.

There was never a doubt that a passion for freedom and a deep suspicion of government overreach would form the core of Felito Cruzs identity.

Felitoborn Rafael Edward Cruz, he didnt switch to Ted until his early teens, after tiring of other kids not being able to pronounce his namewas the only child of a Cuban immigrant and a woman from Delaware.

Eleanor Darragh, first in her family to attend college, was a math major who went on to work as a computer programmer at Shell Oil. She met Rafael Cruz at an oil exploration company where they both worked. Hed left Cuba in 1957 with $100 sewn into his underwear; like many other Cuban emigres, he quickly took to conservatism, drawn by its fervent anti-Communism and emphasis on personal freedoms. Eleanor was more moderate; their sons first political memory is of his parents arguing over Eleanors vote for Jimmy Carter for president in 1976.

Cruzwho was born in Calgary, Alberta, where his parents were working in the oil and gas businessbelieves he inherited his mothers passion for the underdog and his fathers resolute belief in the primacy of the individual and efficiency of the marketplace. Even before high school, Cruz thought about such things. He read the economics classics of Adam Smith, freemarketeer Milton Friedman and Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, a hero to American libertarians.

His dad pounded into him the idea that youd better appreciate American freedom, says Bill Miller, Cruzs teacher in Sunday school and Bible study classes at Trinity Faith Fellowship in Houston. Rafael would say, I could leave Cuba to come hereif you had to leave the United States, where would you go?

When Felito was 13, his father signed him up for classes at the Free Enterprise Institute, where he spent hundreds of hours studying the Constitution, the Federalist Papers and other founding documents. He was one of five teens in the institutes constitutional collaborators program, in which kids memorized the Constitution, wrote speeches and performed for Rotary clubs and other groups across Texas. Cruz was the star. (He also acted in high school and was so serious about his craft that he considered going directly from high school to Hollywood. His parents talked him out of that one.)