Phil Ammann
At Virginia’s Liberty University, Ted Cruz made it official.
The Texas senator declared his long awaited White House bid on Monday with a passionate 30-minute speech, calling to “reignite the promise of America.”
Cruz, a tea party firebrand, became the first in a soon-to-be-very-crowded Republican field with an event at the bastion of Christian conservatism; an irony not lost on either sides of the aisle, including editorial cartoonist Bill Day.
Cruz’s campaign — most certainly a long shot — seeks to mold him as a grassroots warrior, not only against recognizable opponents (liberals and Democrats], but also the Republican Party establishment itself.
The speech, followed by a Christian-themed rock music and prayer event at Liberty University, the country’s largest Christian university, threw down a gauntlet for Jeb Bush, the Texas native, former Florida governor and presumptive GOP front-runner.
In essence, Cruz declared war on the “mushy” Republicans from his own party.
“Imagine repealing every word of Common Core,” he told the audience — many of whom were students at the mandatory university event — in a clear preview of the upcoming battle over education, one issue sure to frame the debate in 2016.
Although conventional wisdom is that Cruz does not have a chance at the presidency, anyone who doubts the “Cruzzard” (as Day calls him) is gearing up for a battle on several fronts may be underestimating him.
Remember this: Cruz was one of the lawmakers who spearheaded the 16-day federal government shutdown in October 2013. Anyone willing to cut his nose to spite America’s face is ready to fight all comers.
Even as the Republican Party looks to a Cruz campaign with a slight amount of trepidation, there is one person happy the tea party agitator has entered the race: likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
She, for one, has little fear of Day’s Cruzzard.
