Ted Cruz

About

Ted Cruz, born December 22, 1970 (age 44), is a Republican Senator from Texas known for being the first Hispanic American to serve as a senator from the state. In March 2015, the senator announced his bid to run for the Republican Party nomination in the 2016 United States Presidential election.

Political Career

In 1999, Cruz served as a policy advisor for the George W. Bush presidential campaign. From 2003 to 2008, Cruz held the office of Solicitor General of Texas. In 2012, Cruz was elected as the first Hispanic and Cuban American to serve as a senator from Texas in the United States Congress.

2013 Government Shutdown

On September 23rd, 2013, the day before the Congressional vote on a funding bill for the U.S. Healthcare Reform, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz staged a lengthy filibuster speech on the Senate floor in a last-minute attempt to shore up support against its passage, effectively prolonging the suspension of the United States federal government. Cruz' speech, which began at 2:41 p.m. (ET) and went on uninterrupted for 21 hours until noon on the day of the vote, consisted of the usual rhetorics against big government spendings, but as hours passed, Cruz resorted to a number of interesting tactics, including a reading of Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham_, as well as drawing comparisons between his grandstanding to the American mission to the Moon and Washington D.C. to the "_Star Wars":/memes/star-wars Galactic Empire, while likening his opponents to the British appeasement of the Nazi party in the years leading up to World War II.

Senator Cruz' speech was largely ignored by the Democrats as a self-serving publicity stunt and met by lukewarm responses from fellow Republicans, and by the end of the night, Cruz voted for the bill (100-0). Nevertheless, the one-man protest against Obamacare was widely covered by the U.S news outlets and met by satirical response on Twitter (shown below).

Presidential Campaign

On March 23rd, 2015, Cruz declared his bid for the Republican Party nomination in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. That day, The Onion^[2] published an article titled "Who is Ted Cruz," featuring several satirical "facts" about the Republican senator.

March 2016 GOP Debate

In March 2016, Cruz was filmed with an unidentified white object resting on his lip while delivering a monologue at a televised GOP presidential debate. Following the event, several videos of the object disappearing into Cruz's mouth were circulating online, with many speculating it was a booger or a tonsillolith (shown below).

Running Mate Selection

On April 27th, Cruz officially announced former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina as his vice presidential running mate. While on stage after the announcement, the pair awkwardly grasped hands before holding them together above their heads (shown below).

Campaign Suspension Announcement

On May 3rd, Donald Trump overwhelming beat Cruz in the Indiana primary, earning over 587,000 votes compared to Cruz's 404,000. That evening, Cruz addressed his supporters and officially announced the end of his presidential campaign (shown below).

At the end of the announcement, Cruz was shown accidentally elbowing his wife in the face while embracing a man at the podium (shown below). GIFs and videos of the awkward moment were subsequently circulated on various sites online, including Gawker,^[7] Reddit,^[8] The Huffington Post,^[9] Digg^[10] and Mashable.^[11]

2018 Senate Re-election Campaign

DNA Test Confrontation

On April 4th, 2018, YouTuber ^[15] Tammy Talpas published a video in which she confronts Ted Cruz at a campaign stop in Austin, Texas. In the video (shown below), Talpas reads a pre-written statement to Cruz. She says, "I purchase my individual policy on the Health Insurance Exchange. If you force me into a high-risk pool, you will either bankrupt me or kill me. I take your threats of medical aggression personally and seriously; and I can assure you, I’m not the only Texan who d… who does. My question is: Will you pledge to submit to a DNA test, to prove that you’re human?"

Cruz declined to comment. He said, "Well, Ma’am, thank you for that. One of the great things about our democratic system is that we can treat each other with respect and civility."

Within 24 hours, the video received more than 97,000 views. Additionally, several news outlets covered the exchange, including The Daily Dot, ^[16] The New York Post,^[17] Mashable ^[18] and more.

Maybe Beto Can't Debate Ted Cruz Because…

Maybe Beto Can't Debate Ted Cruz Because refers to parodies made of a tweet by the Texas GOP Twitter account which suggested that Senator Ted Cruz' Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke could not debate the senator because he had a gig with his old band, attaching a promotional photo of the politician from when he played with the group. The tweet was mocked by many for backfiring and making O'Rourke appear cool, and was turned into a snowclone in some parodies. On August 28th, 2018, the Texas GOP Twitter account, @TexasGOP, tweeted an image of Beto O'Rourke and his bandmates in Foss, which played in the 90s. The tweet was meant to show O'Rourke as unprofessional.

After the tweet was posted, it was mocked by many Twitter users for inadvertently making O'Rourke look cool. User @Neighbormania sarcastically tweeted "Definitely don't want to vote for this cool guy who did fun stuff and had friends," gaining over 380 retweets and 10,000 likes (shown below, left). User iCyclone said that he was glad to see an elected official who's "lived life" as opposed to "walking corpses in suits" (shown below, right).

Ted Cruz Looking at Beto O'Rourke

On September 25th, 2018, Cruz was photographed on an airplane looking at a picture of Beto O'Rourke on his phone. The pictures were tweeted by user @KFILE that morning (shown below).

Twitter users joked that Cruz was jealous of O'Rourke in the picture, adding captions sarcastically calling Cruz relatable and making various other jokes. For example, journalist Elizabeth Bruenig paired the photos with "Hello Darkness My Old Friend", gaining over 55 retweets and 650 likes (shown below, left). User @socarolinesays called Cruz relatable in the images, gaining over 170 likes. Jokes about the pictures were covered by The Daily Dot.^[19]

Online History

TedCruz.com

In 2008, Arizona attorney Ted Cruz registered the site TedCruz.com.^[5][6] In December 2014, the site began displaying the message "Support President Obama. Immigration reform now!" (shown below).

Reputation

Position on Net Neutrality

On November 10th, 2014, Cruz posted a tweet^[3] comparing net neutrality to Obamacare, gathering more than 3,400 retweets and 1,600 favorites in the next four months (shown below).

That day, The Oatmeal^[4] posted an open letter to Cruz to address his perceived misconceptions about the way net neutrality works (shown below). On November 14th, the Texas Tribune^[1] livestreamed an event where Cruz gave remarks on his opposition to Internet regulations and the net neutrality digital rights movement.

Simpsons Comments

On February 22nd, 2018, Cruz, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference Party (CPAC), said "I think the Democrats are the party of Lisa Simpson and Republicans are happily the party of Homer and Bart and Maggie and Marge."^[12] Twitter users jokes about the comments by opining on how they thought The Simpsons would align politically. Showrunner Al Jean responded to the tweet by saying Cruz could use a pacifier (shown below, left). Twitter user @JoeBerkowitz pointed out that the moral of The Simpsons was that Homer was an example who not to be and that Lisa was the voice of reason, gaining 13,000 retweets and 45,000 likes (shown below, right).

Jokes and rebuttals to the commentary were covered by The Huffington Post^[13] and CNN.^[14]

Related Memes

The Zodiac Killer

Ted Cruz the Zodiac Killer is a mock conspiracy theory suggesting that Ted Cruz is the unidentified serial killer nicknamed the “Zodiac Killer,” who claimed to have killed 37 people in a series of anonymous letters in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Lookalikes

Since the beginning of his presidential campaign, Ted Cruz's face has been compared to a variety of celebrities and fictional characters in physical appearance, including Mrs. Doubtfire (Robin Williams), Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner) of The Office, the titular character of ALF, Vladimir Dracula (Al Lewis) of The Munsters, among others.

Lyin' Ted / Beautiful Ted

During the 2016 Republican Primary, Donald Trump nicknamed Cruz "Lyin' Ted," implied his wife was ugly, and accused Cruz' father of having a role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.^[20] During his 2018 midterm bid for reelection against Democrat Beto O'Rourke, Cruz had Trump campaign on his behalf in Houston, Texas. Prior to the rally, a reporter asked Trump if he still considered Cruz "Lyin' Ted," to which Trump responded that he now calls Cruz "Texas Ted" and "Beautiful Ted."

The "Beautiful Ted" line was very quickly parodied on social media. People posted humorous images meant to represent "Beautiful Ted." For example, a photoshop of Ted Cruz made to look like the joker through a kawaii filter tweeted by @cal_beu gained over 90 retweets and 630 likes (shown below, left). User @HireMelmFunny tweeted a parody of the A Star Is Born exploitable, gaining over 480 retweets and 2,000 likes (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References