Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, maybe in 2017 President Cruz of the U.S.A., took the first dive into the presidential candidate swimming pool, announcing a run for the highest office before Christian college students required to attend the gathering in Lynchburg, Virginia.  That city was home to the late Reverend Jerry Falwell, smug founder of the Moral Majority.  Would Falwell have liked Cruz?  Probably.  His last name is Spanish for cross, for Christ's sake.
     Ted Cruz, American success story, has Cuban ancestry.  It's ideal, perhaps, that such a politician seeking head of state status comes along to possibly succeed the President who made the first dent in U.S.-Cuban non-relations, a move viewed as wrong-headed by aging Cuban-American Floridians and those politicians who believe the Cuban people should be stomped on forever.
     I heard MSNBC pundits discussing Cruz as far right, contrasting him with his competitor Jeb Bush, who will, they say, take the middle road in his not yet announced campaign.  After all, Mrs. Jeb Bush is Latina, their children are genetic mixtures, like President Obama and everybody else on the planet.  Jeb Bush, allegedly, will proclaim a humane viewpoint on immigration, fulfilling the compassionate words held by the Statue of Liberty, perhaps.  Or, after he declares his candidacy and he needs to sound more tough than his fellow presidential runners, he won't.  Switching positions will prove easy for him, because he's a politician, because he's a liar.
     Ted Cruz's ambitions include abolishing the IRS and getting rid of Obamacare.  When he makes such rash statements I don't think he's lying, but does he think that as President he could accomplish such victories that would primarily benefit the wealthy, while killing medically uninsured people? 
     One of the women on the Fox News show Outnumbered (wherein four women in dresses, legs always crossed, surround a single male guest seated on the middle segment of a large U-shaped couch) observed that Ted Cruz makes good speeches.  Indeed, he's smooth, confident, although his voice sounds like the buzz of a model airplane engine.  Former Congressman Allen West of Florida, today's lone male on the show, then remarked that making a good speech isn't enough.  Another woman on the couch said, "That's right.  One can have a great speaking style, but look who's living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and where has that got us?"
     After I rose from the floor after laughing my ass off at that--you can't sit when you don't have an ass--I switched off the TV set and contemplated Senator Cruz's announcement.  He is, like him or not, running for President.  He spoke up, making the declarative set of statements necessary to tell us he's running.  Has Jeb Bush, or Scott Walker, or Hillary Clinton, or Mike Huckabee, or any of the other likely ones done this?  Not yet.
     Last week, Scott Walker in New Hampshire said he's the frontrunner.
     Jeb Bush was later asked by a reporter what he thinks of Walker's claim.
     "Well," Bush said, "I'm not a candidate." 
     But he is wishy-washy.
     Hillary Clinton, when asked about her obvious run, always plays it coy, and it's sickening.
     So good for you, Ted Cruz!  I doubt that you'll be President, you're too fucking ridiculous.  During your pseudo-filibuster a while back you resorted at some tired point to reading out loud Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham.  You don't come across as someone who could handle a super-complex job like the Presidency, but you could probably run a Havana casino after the Castro Brothers die. 

                                                                       Vic Neptune