Ted Cruz and Barack Obama: compare and contrast.

They are both the children of mixed-race (if you count Cuban or Hispanic as a race) couples, although Cruz’s parents stayed together and Obama’s did not. Assuming Cruz wins election to the Senate—and having won the primary, it is highly likely that that will be the case—both men will have become senators while in their early forties. They are both graduates of Harvard Law School, where Obama was the first African-American president of the Law Review and Cruz was the founder of the Latino Law Review. They have both been much touted for their oratorical skills.

One huge difference between them is, of course, their political ideology: Cruz is a conservative, and Obama is—well, you fill in the blank.

Another difference is that, in certain ways, Ted Cruz actually is what Barack Obama only pretends to be.

Obama the great legal mind had a law career that seems to have peaked in law school; he never achieved anything like the legal accomplishments that would have been expected of a Law Review president, with his biggest post-Harvard coup a lectureship at the University of Chicago, where he never produced the scholarship that would have qualified him for tenure. Cruz went on to much greater achievements in the actual practice of law:

…[Cruz was] the first Hispanic to clerk for a chief justice of the United States, in Cruz’s case, William Rehnquist; the first Hispanic solicitor general in the country; and the youngest and longest-serving to hold that position.

Cruz also has argued nine cases before the Supreme Court.

Say what you will about lawyers, his is an impressive record. But perhaps the most impressive thing about Cruz is his dedication to conservative principles, beginning very early:

As a teenager, Cruz made a name for himself after he memorized the Constitution and hit the road to deliver speeches on its intrinsic meaning. The practice paved the way for his first-place finishes at the 1992 National and North American Debate Championships.

Winston Elliott, who organized the high school speech competitions in Texas, said he remembers Cruz blowing away the competition with his thoroughness and passion.

Elliott said Cruz’s father’s story of immigrating from Cuba without speaking English inspired him not only to immerse himself in the country’s constitutional principles but to dig deep into the Founding Fathers’ true intentions.

It’s not unusual for the children of immigrants who have fled Communist regimes (which Obama was not; his father was only studying here temporarily, and remained a leftist for the rest of his life) to have an unusually deep appreciation of American history and American exceptionalism. Cruz appears to be an excellent example of that group.

Oh, and by the way, Cruz’s father was a changer:

…[Cruz’s father] fled to Texas at age 18 with $100 sewn in his underwear. His father had fought alongside Fidel Castro against right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista but eventually renounced Castro.

Therein lies a tale, I’m sure.