Separated at birth? Ted Cruz and Jabba the Hutt
Now that he's declared himself a Republican Party candidate for President of these United States, the first question on a lot of people's minds is "Just who is Ted Cruz?"
We know he's a rabid climate change denier who famously said the climate hasn't gotten warmer in 17 years. He also hates Obamacare and has pledged repeatedly to repeal every word of the Affordable Care Act despite confirming on March 24 that he'll sign up for Obamacare because it's the law and he's a law abiding American.
He also despises President Obama, by the way, and the Democratic Party, as well. But we all know that. But here are some things a lot of us don't know about "Ted" Cruz, that Republican senator from Texas.
Ted Cruz's real name is Rafael Edward Cruz. He's an only child.
He's Latino but you wouldn't know it by his looks or believe it because of Cruz's fierce and unbending opposition to immigration reform that affects mostly -- you guessed it -- Latinos living in the U.S. He took on the moniker Ted in his high school years at Second Baptist School in Houston.
He was the first Hispanic, the youngest and the longest-serving solicitor general in Texas history. He was also the first Hispanic to clerk for a Chief Justice of the United States (William Rehnquist).
Despite his Spanish roots, Cruz (his family name means "cross" in English) once admitted publicly that "my Spanish is lousy". He was forced to make this admission after refusing to face a political opponent in Texas who challenged him to a debate in Spanish.
Ted's family nickname is "Felito," which was given to honor his father, Rafael Bienvenido Cruz, a Cuban émigré who fought with Fidel Castro and the Communists in Cuba because "he didn't know Castro was a communist" before fleeing to the United States in 1957. Felito means "little Rafael".
Ted was born in Calgary, Canada on December 22, 1970 but is considered an American citizen because his mother, Eleanor Elizabeth Darragh Wilson, is an American citizen.
Anti-Cruz "birthers" have long held Cruz's birth in Canada makes him a Canadian and ineligible to run for U.S. President despite the U.S. Constitution defining an American citizen as someone who's "natural born". Cruz is an American since his mother's an American.
But if he does become President, Cruz can't escape the fact he'll be the first Canadian-born U.S. President in history. Does he want to be remembered for this?
Felito became so good at acting in high school he considered heading for Hollywood after graduation. His parents talked him out of this harebrained idea but one wonders if Felito would have been better as an action hero instead of a presidential wannabe beloved by the Tea Party and extreme right wing groups but detested by the rest of the Republican Party. Perhaps his acting skills will pay political dividends someday.
Hispanics comprise almost one-third of the electorate in Texas and it's impossible his fellow Texan-Latinos will vote him into the presidency. This reality was manifested in 2012 when Texas Latinos overwhelmingly voted for Cruz's Democratic opponent for senator. Cruz got just 35 percent of the Hispanic vote.
"I can't envision any scenario in which Ted Cruz can make any appeal to Latinos at this point," said Matt Barreto, co-founder of the polling and research firm Latino Decisions and a political science/Chicano studios professor at the University of California, Los Angeles to The Washington Post.
"If anything, he will hurt Republican chances (with Latino voters). It will be worse than Mitt Romney."
Someone once tweeted Ted Cruz reminded him of Jabba the Hutt, the alien gang boss from Star Wars IV. I leave it to you to decide after looking at this side-by-side photo.
