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I Am Not A Fan of This Ted Cruz for President Thing

I don’t always read the news, but when I do, I prefer to read about things that are, you know, new. That’s why I was frustrated to read this morning about a 40-something Harvard grad, barely a third of the way through his first term as U.S. senator, announcing a White House bid in front of a crowd of screaming millennials. I had to double-check the year on my calendar to make sure I wasn’t having another malaria-induced fever dream.

Ted Cruz's so-called "conservatism" has always struck me as phonier than Barack Obama’s so-called "birth certificate." I thought his coloring book was a heaping pile of left-wing propaganda aimed at our nation’s youth. And don’t get me started on his perverse obsession with Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan.

Ted Cruz claims to oppose the failed presidency of Barack Obama, but their resumés are practically identical. Ivy League? Check. Law degree? Check? Junior senator from a left-leaning state? Check. Born in a foreign country to an anti-colonial father? Check and check. Most importantly, both men have defunded Obamacare the exact same number of times.

Every four years, the GOP establishment rallies around a vanilla candidate with a high squish factor. This time around, they’ve settled on Cruz. There’s still plenty of time for a genuine conservative to throw his hat into the ring. Cruz is almost embarrassingly vulnerable to a challenge from the right.

That said, I’m a little distressed to see so many alleged conservatives rushing to Cruz’s defense. "Defunding Obamacare is hard!" they say. "He only has one vote! At least he tried!" Oh, really? You know who else had just one vote? General George S. Patton. And that didn’t stop him from thrashing the Nazis into submission.

Let me remind you that when Ted Cruz was asked to compare and contrast Barack Obama with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, he had this to say: "Obviously there are enormous differences." Read that again. Then, if you’re still inclined to use "Ted Cruz" and "conservative" in the same sentence, give me a holler.

I’ll wait.

CORRECTION: This post originally used the gender neutral formulation "his or her" when discussing a potential conservative challenger to Ted Cruz. It has been replaced with a single male pronoun to reflect the dominance exuded by the author. Biff Diddle regrets the error.