This time around we’re profiling the first Republican to fling his hat into the overcrowded ring, Ted Cruz.
Cruz is the Canadian-born, Cuban-American Tea Party-aligned freshman senator from Texas, all of which, while it represents a mouthful of weird, is fully representative of everything he seems to be: a contradiction. His father fought with Fidel Castro in the revolution, and Cruz himself studied public policy at Princeton and law at (where else?) Harvard. And up until almost two years ago when it was pointed out to him by a Dallas newspaper, he held dual citizenship in Canada and the United States.
We’ve all seen his over-the-top performances, including his most famous performance in the 21-hour solo filibuster attempt to block a funding bill in 2013 which eventually led to a government shutdown. But where does he stand on other issues?
He’s flip-flopped on his position on American involvement in Syria, initially saying we had no role in the civil war, but changed his view only after ISIS emerged and started taking over portions of the country.
Not surprisingly, he supports voter ID laws, gun rights, and unlimited campaign contributions, but thankfully he introduced a law to forbid the use of drones to kill U.S. citizens within within the U.S. Sadly, this much-needed legislation seems to have died on the vine shortly after its introduction.
He’s pro-life, pro-flat tax, but is anti-same-sex marriage, to the point where he chastised the Republican mayor of Dallas for twice participating in gay pride parades because you shouldn’t be supporting that anyway. But he does believe that states should be allowed to decide for themselves whether or not to allow same-sex marriage.
He has said himself that his foreign policy stance lies somewhere between isolationism and active interventionism, which seems to indicate he has no clue what he believes on a broad scale, just that he’ll make it up as he goes along. Which I think was basically the George W. Bush foreign policy.
Oddly enough, there are no calls for a “birther” type investigation to his true birthplace, and it should be pointed out that prior to running for president, Barack Obama had more legislative and congressional experience than Ted Cruz does. But hey, leadership experience isn’t important, right? As for other experience, he’s been a law clerk, a lawyer, a solicitor general, and, well, a lawyer. Oh, and he advised George W. Bush’s campaign on domestic policy.
So there you have it: Ted Cruz. Candidate for President.