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Ted Cruz Gets What He Wants

by Alexi McCammond

At this point, it's no secret that Ted Cruz, the junior senator from Texas, is running for president. According to the polls, Cruz has secured the number two spot among GOP candidates, second only to Donald Trump. Just as he has proven his ability to win over almost the majority of Republican voters, an image of Ted Cruz's high school bio resurfaced on the Internet, showing Cruz has been serious about running for president since he was a teenager.

Throughout the elections, voters catch a glimpse of what the various candidates are like based on their involvement in politics today, where they stand on the issues, or how other candidates think about their colleagues. (Trump believes Cruz is unfit for the presidency). However, the image of Cruz's high school biography proves that he has always had diverse interests and his eyes set on the White House. According to Mother Jones, the image was a submission for a traveling club Cruz belonged to at Second Baptist High School. The club, called Constitutional Corroborators, allowed politically-minded students to travel around Texas reciting bits of the constitution from memory at Rotary Clubs and various civic engagement events in the community.

Seriously though, if I had been involved in half as many things as Cruz was in high school, I'd feel extremely proud of myself. In any case, in light of the current presidential race and Cruz's life history, this bio turned out to be impressively accurate, as he has accomplished pretty much everything he said he wanted to achieve after high school. (Presidency TBD in 2016 of course.)

The first thing that stands out in this bio is that Cruz co-authored the student council constitution at his high school. As someone who is running to be president, it's clear that Cruz has had a genuine, vested interest in politics and constitutional rights from an early age. It's unclear what the student council constitution entailed, but it is interesting to think about Cruz's stance on the constitution today. In an interview with theSkimm, Cruz mentioned the word "Constitution" four different times, and he revealed his longstanding allegiance to the document on which our country was built. "I've just spent virtually my entire life fighting to defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights," Cruz said. Regarding his position against same-sex marriage, Cruz cited the Constitution again:

That's the way our Constitution is supposed to work. Unfortunately, five judges on the Supreme Court decided they didn't care what 320 million Americans thought about the laws that should govern them. That they were going to impose their own extreme policy instead that was contrary to Constitution and fundamentally undermined the rule of law in this country.

Perhaps the early exposure to co-authoring a constitution for student council influenced Cruz to support our country's constitution in its original version, thus remaining unwilling to compromise despite modern societal changes.

The presidential race has been filled with drama, largely thanks to Trump's antics during debates, but now that seems sort of fitting considering Cruz was a theater geek in high school. This bio revealed that Cruz was president of his school's drama club, because, you know, any great commander-in-chief knows how to put on a show. According to NBC News, Cruz enjoyed playing the villain in his school's theater productions — Bill Sikes from Oliver! was a favorite. In the April interview with NBC News, Cruz even went on to say, "It's a fun role, and everyone cheers when you're killed at the end."

Let's hope for Cruz's sake his presidential campaign doesn't mimic his background in theater when he portrayed the bad guy whose demise invoked cheers from the audience. Yikes. But since the rest of his high school bio accurately predicted his life (Cruz did receive his bachelor's from Princeton University and a law degree from Harvard), then maybe he might have successfully predicted his upcoming presidency in 2016.