Every political candidate has things they’d rather not have discussed about them in public. GOP hopeful Ted Cruz hopes you’ll ignore these.
Two years ago, I wrote the first “6 Things Ted Cruz Wants You To Forget” post. Surprisingly, it has been a a very popular post. And I had to wonder why? There are things every political candidate would prefer voters not focus on as they run for office, and it seems like these are very interesting to voters, especially those who want to support the Texas Republican:
1. He wants you to forget he was born in Canada. Yes, Cruz is an American citizen because his mother is and was at time of his birth. But he wants his fans to think he is a “natural born” citizen, as is required by the Constitution. But conservatives and “birthers” can’t have it both ways — they can’t keep stirring the pot of whether Barack Obama was born in the U.S. (which he was) and keep insisting that to be eligible to run for president a candidate must be born on U.S. soil. Being born in Canada, makes Cruz a Canadian citizen, as well, though Cruz claims he’s “renounced” that. But
2. Odds are he used to get his health insurance from a Goldman Sachs “Cadillac plan.” While the junior Senator from Texas is trying to prevent more Americans from getting any sort of health plan at all, some have wondered — how can U.S. senators be against a government-backed health insurance plan when they benefit from one themselves? Good question in the hypocrisy department, but Cruz may have had even better coverage than his Senate colleagues before he announced his run for president. Cruz’s wife was the head of a regional Goldman Sachs office (yes, THAT Goldman Sachs), and according to a 2009New York Times report, top executive officers and managing directors there “are eligible to participate in a health care program that costs Goldman more than $40,000 in premiums for each particpant’s family annually.” She is currently on an unpaid leave of absence from the Wall Street giant (so presumably not entitled to the health insurance perk while not receiving salary) and even though Cruz initially said he would have to jump into the Obamacare pool, ultimately he opted to buy health insurance on the open market. But that begs the question – if he is elected president, how will he square his opposition to the Affordable Care Act with the fact that he will have to insure his family through it?
3. Cruz clerked for two extreme judicial conservatives. If you have any question about just how conservative Cruz is, look no further than two far-right jurists he clerked for, the late Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist and J. Michael Luttig, formerly a judge on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, well known as an extremely conservative bench (though that has been changing in recent years).
4. He doesn’t like fact-checkers. Facts? We don’t need no stinking facts! As least that’s what Cruz seems to think when it comes to his statements. Reporters who fact-checked assertions Cruz made in his infamous “Green Eggs and Ham” Obamacare super-speech a couple of years ago mad him outraged! Cruz claimed that fact-checking is “a particularly pernicious bit of yellow journalism that has cropped up that lets journalists be editorial writers and pretend they are talking about objective facts.” So I guess he believes in the Chuck Todd method of reporting?
5. His real name is Rafael. That’s shouldn’t be a biggy. Many people who are named after their fathers go by a nickname. But as someone who seems to have an eye on the White House, surely Cruz knows what happens to candidates who have names that seem a little out of the ordinary to the tea party crowd?
6. His aunt was a counter-revolutionary against Fidel Castro. While Cruz’s father fought alongside Castro before fleeing Cuba, the elder Cruz’s sister fought against the Communist regime. How many people can say they’re related to revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries? His aunt’s role will probably play well with the very politically influential Florida Cuban voting bloc if he really has presidential aspirations. But his pro-Castro dad his been prominent in Cruz’s campaign? And as he surely knows, the all important South Florida Cuban community won’t favor anyone with pro-Castro ties, no matter how far in the past.
Joanne Bamberger is an independent journalist and journalism entrepreneur who is also the author/editor of book Amazon bestseller “Love Her, Love Her Not: The Hillary Paradox” (She Writes Press). She is the publisher and editor in chief of The Broad Side, and is the principal of Broad Side Strategies, a strategic communications firm.
Image via Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore/CC License
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