Ultra-rightist: Ted Cruz, the Troublemaker

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is a dyed-in-the-wool ultraconservative. Some of his congressional colleagues have referred to him as a “wacko bird.” As a “wacko bird,” in normal times, he would have little chance of being nominated as his party’s candidate for the White House.

But where Ted Cruz is concerned, there isn’t much that is normal.

Cruz is the son of a Cuban father and an American mother. At age 30, he was already a campaign adviser to George W. Bush. As a senator, he has shaken up the Republican establishment more than anyone else. After 2013, the gifted orator quickly gained a reputation as a radical troublemaker.

As a candidate for the presidency, he wants to continue stirring up the political establishment in Washington — a fact he re-iterated at the Iowa caucus — against the leadership, against the media, and against the lobbyists. Instead of all that, he wants the people to have a voice (“We the people…”) and a government that exists solely to carry out God’s laws and His will. He pledged his election victory to the greater glory of God.

“Any president who doesn’t begin every day on his knees isn’t fit to be commander-in-chief of this nation,” Cruz said after his caucus victory. The religious right is thrilled to hear such pious rhetoric, but will it catch on in a nation becoming increasingly secular?

Cruz is a star in the right-wing tea party faction’s constellation. He rejects abortion for any reason just as vehemently as he does stronger anti-gun laws. He openly opposes “Obamacare,” the successful and increasingly accepted health care reform program. If he had his way, he would abolish the Internal Revenue Service entirely and transform the southern U.S. border into a fortress.

His foreign policy views are pithy: He wants to see how he can make the Islamic State’s desert sands glow in the dark and speculates that carpet bombing would help.

At his election rallies, shouts like “Cruz control!” or “Captain Constitution!” echo through the halls. Whether he’s the strong man or the guardian of the Constitution, Cruz the lawyer likes to be seen wearing ostrich skin cowboy boots.

Meanwhile, Cruz is anything but a dumb cowpoke. His associates describe him as fast, agile and quick-witted. As a Harvard student, Cruz was a respected actor. Anyone who hears and watches his speeches closely can see it: the exact pauses, the ornate arches, the precise timing.

He lives with his wife Heidi and their two daughters in his hometown of Houston, Texas, but is seldom at home. Heidi, meanwhile, is much more than just the wife at his side: The former Goldman-Sachs investment banker plans Ted’s career with the military precision of a general staff officer. In terms of purpose and degree of organization, Cruz and his wife are sometimes compared to the Clintons.

Establishment Republicans fear that Cruz could prove a powerful polarizing force, but he has strong support from conservative Christians and the gun lobby — two interest groups with considerable influence. Lindsey Graham, who recently left the ranks of Republicans seeking the presidency, pointedly compared the choice between Trump and Cruz as choosing between shooting yourself or taking poison.

Trump and Cruz: For the American right, it was the perfect pas de deux of “bromance” (an amalgam of brother and romance), but now it’s over because Cruz ventured too far into “the Donald’s” territory. Since then, the two have been passionately attacking one another. The New York Times recently drew the memorable picture that both anti-establishment candidates had gone down in a deadly embrace — together.

Cruz was born in Canada of an American mother. Some — Trump, for example — posed the question, timed to coincide with the Iowa caucus, as to whether Cruz could be elected president under the threat of “a big lawsuit” pending over his Canadian citizenship. Cruz tried to let that remark roll off his back, but wasn’t completely successful. But the legal determination of that question will be complicated, even if Cruz tries to stamp that little fire out like he does with everything else: determined, with a cold smile and a trembling voice.