The Daily Princetonian:
“I was a weird 17-year-old,” Ted Cruz ’92 told the full house gathered in McCosh 50 to hear him speak in a conversation with professor Robert George on the Friday afternoon of Reunions. Cruz’s observation was made in response to an anecdote he told the crowd about how when he was 17, he knew that what he wanted to do with his life was to “fight for free market principles.”
Since his teenage years, Cruz has stuck to his life plans as a 17-year-old. He advocates finding a passion, fighting for one’s beliefs and sticking to principles. He discussed his experience at Princeton, his career after college, his successful Senate election in 2012 as a Republican representing Texas and his optimism for the larger future of the conservative movement.
Cruz cited the balanced education at Princeton and its impact on his way of thinking about issues.
“It did strike me that although conservatives at Princeton are still a minority on campus, that there was in fact a community,” noted Cruz, an active member of the Whig-Cliosophic Society during his University years. “I didn’t want to be in a place where everyone agreed with me. But at the same time I wasn’t sure I wanted college to be a place where nobody agreed with me.”
Eventually becoming the chairman of the conservative group, the Clios, Cruz noted that he never experienced animosity toward his beliefs from his more liberal classmates during his time at the University. He recalled that even after passionate arguments on an issue, he and his friends could still poke fun at each other. “You laugh about it, you call them Communist, they call you Fascist,” Cruz said, joking.
On a larger scale, Cruz said that maintaining the drive and passion that many college students have is crucial. “Don’t lose the passion you feel at 21 years old. Don’t settle in to middle-age acquiescence,” Cruz said.
In particular, Cruz advocated the idea of intellectual diversity.
“There is this tendency in public discourse to view anyone that disagrees with you as evil or stupid,” he said.
Cruz noted that during his time as a professor at the University of Texas law school, he often thought students had a more well-rounded pedagogical experience when they argued the side of case for which they strongly disagreed.
With his background in law, Cruz emphasized that he is a Constitutionalist as well as a believer in free market conservatism, citing Ronald Reagan as a political model he tries to emulate.
Cruz said passion for these strong beliefs in free market conservatism principles have served him well. Recounting his Senate race in 2012, he said that although he was down in the primaries, he rallied back because his conservative supporters launched a grassroots campaign defending free market principles. The passion that Cruz felt his staff had for these principles is what, he believes, won him the election.
Subsequently, leaning away from free market conservatism and toward elections results has spelled trouble for the Republican Party, according to Cruz.
“There are those who make the argument from a Republican partisan perspective — the goal is just for Republicans to win,” Cruz noted. He further said that some also believe that Republicans can win by not standing for anything too controversial.
For Cruz, this attitude is a significant part of the reason why Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, and again in 2012.
Cruz is a total loon.