8 ways Ted Cruz could be the scariest debater on the Republican stage

The Week ^ | 8/5/15 | Staff

[VinL]

While Donald Trump and Jeb Bush elbow for their space in the limelight Thursday night, Ted Cruz's Princeton classmates warn that it would be remiss to count him out just yet. Here are eight ways Cruz could steal the show in Cleveland. Jeva Lange

1. He's sneaky. "Nobody was better at setting traps," Austan D. Goolsbee, a Yale debater who later became a leading economist for President Obama, said.

2. He's captivating. "He knew how to hold a room," recalled Stephen Wunker, who was a year ahead of Cruz on the debate team.

3. He's driven. "He seemed to be the presumptive winner," said Ted Niblock, a Johns Hopkins University debater in Cruz's year who now works as the general counsel for a clean energy startup. "This was on top of his frequent tournament victories, which were earned in the most grinding, methodical, joyless way possible. This might be my biggest problem with him: He took all the fun out of it. He prepared and prepared, came to the tournament on the weekend, executed his plan, and then went back to Princeton to take the fun out of something else."

4. He's in his element. "In that environment, he was cool, spectacular, a god," Raj Vinnakota, a Princeton debater who knew Cruz and who is now the CEO of the SEED Foundation in Washington, D.C., said.

5. He's an all-star on the stage. "He was Michael Jordan in a game where I mostly sat on the bench," wrote Sacha Zimmerman.

6. He knows how to manipulate emotions. "It's not visual. It's not: Look at me. It's: Listen to me. No, believe me. No, follow me," said Dae Levine, a Columbia debater now working as a communications strategist.

7. He's unnerving. "I remember him as a scary, driven machine who fought a protracted, bloody land war for total victory," Niblock said.

8. He's been doing this forever. He was a "fully-formed political animal" even in college, said Bob Ewing, a Princeton debate team leader.

[VinL]

All these articles on Cruz and debate miss the point entirely. The debate is unimportant- Ted Cruz has long since anticipated the questions, fashioned his answers, knows every opponent’s answer, his rejoinders– all the way down to what he says to journalists post debate. In his mind, the debate has already played out.

What is important in these articles is that Ted Cruz is characterized by all who knew him as an uncompromising conservative ideologue, who takes no prisoners, and is obsessed with completing his mission ---- and that’s what I love upon the guy.

Ted Cruz is the only one who will drive the McConnells, and Hatchs and Mccains and Boehner’s from power– and he will transform the GOP back to a limited gov’t party.

Incredible, on Cruz threads, when the trolls come on with the HB1 CRAP. What does it matter? If your candidate wont TRANSFORM the GOP, then no other issue matters!!!!

The GOP is a socialist party, that wants to create a permanent underclass. If one doesn’t stop the GOP-E, the middle class is headed for peasantry– HB1, free trade or not.

[SoConPubbie]

    Ted Cruz Ping!

    If you want on/off this ping list, please let me know.
    Please beware, this is a high-volume ping list!

    CRUZ or LOSE!

[keats5]

I am so looking forward to hearing him tonight!

[skeeter]

Its easy to be an awesome debater when confronting lies with truth.

That is all I ask of my candidate.

[cripplecreek]

7. He's unnerving. "I remember him as a scary, driven machine who fought a protracted, bloody land war for total victory," Niblock said.

I can't help but like this one.

[waterhill]

Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to slay everyone you meet Ted. And that he does.

[DungeonMaster]

Unlike Trump, Cruz takes a long time and a lot of words to make a point.

[whinecountry]

“an uncompromising conservative ideologue, who takes no prisoners, and is obsessed with completing his mission —— and that’s what I love upon the guy.”

Mega-dittoes!

[VinL]

What’s Trump got to do with it?

[aquila48]

Yeah, but too bad it’s not a debate.

[WayneS]

9. Wear a Hillary Clinton mask...

[WayneS]

Those are reasons, not “ways”.

[Ronin]

I am in Japan so I don’t think I will be able to see the debate. Looking forward to the live thread. One thing that I am particularly interested in is seeing or hearing about how Trump and Ted interact. I have a feeling that they are going to work synergistically against the others. Trump’s hammer to Ted’s rapier.

[VinL]

Whine, amazing to me, how on this conservative board, where people have been lamenting that a true conservative doesn’t exist any more-— some trash the guy who’s the answer to their prayers.

[grumpygresh]

Cruz is by far the intellectual heavyweight and most competent debater. I wonder if Cruz and Trump have made a non-aggression pact.

I hope they pile on the biggest terd in the field- jebbush.

[VinL]

I don’t understand.

[DesertRhino]

” If one doesn’t stop the GOP-E, the middle class is headed for peasantry– HB1, free trade or not.”

That misses the point. HB1, free trade, global bankers before country, THAT is the essence of GOP-E. If you are for those things, essentially you are GOP-E.

[aquila48]

“Yeah, but too bad it’s not a debate.”

It’s going to be a “Gatchafest”.

The winner will be the one who’s most effective at slapping down the inquisitors and the false premises behind everyone of their questions.

[Cyclone59]

Cruz is not even the final candidate and we have old classmates talking about him to the LSM. Yet our current president was the editor of the Harvard Law Review and we still have not seen anything he wrote or have had any classmates come forward.

[gwjack]

Hi VinL,

I’ve written before, Cruz plays three dimensional chess and the others are lucky to find the stage. He was born for this time. He was born for this moment. Cruz plays aggressively, with reckless abandon because he knows who he is; and whose he is.

Gwjack