Posted on 05/28/2015 7:30:21 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The senator is known as a Tea Party firebrand. What he’s not known as is a hidden geek who can’t get enough of ‘Candy Crush.’ He tells The Daily Beast why he can’t have a console.
Long before Ted Cruz became a senator from Texas, he was a gamer. He’s known for being pugilistic on the Senate floor, but sometimes he’d rather be fighting cartoon zombies on his iPhone.
It’s an uncommon lens through which to view Cruz, a controversial conservative figure who is now running for the highest political office in the country. Cruz’s video game habit fits into a largely hidden geek persona that lurks just behind his better-known public reputation as an obstinate Tea Party firebrand.
At the moment, Cruz is playing Plants vs. Zombies, a game where users collect sunlight points to feed plants who fight off waves of zombies; Candy Crush, the puzzle game where he claims he’s in the 217th level; and The Creeps!, a tower defense game.
His video game addiction is so severe, Cruz says, he has to proactively deny himself the ability to spend time on it.
“I don’t have a console, mostly as a time management tool, because if I had one, I would use it far too much,” he told The Daily Beast.
The Texas Republican explains the origins of his love for video games as a generational phenomenon. He ticks off his favorite games at his childhood arcade: Galaga, Space Invaders, Centipede.
“I was a kid growing up in the ’70s and ’80s. I had a Nintendo, an Atari,” he said. “I still remember the Christmas we got our first Pong game.”
His love for video games evolved over time as he entered college, then law school. David Panton, who was Cruz’s roommate for 4 1/2 years through Princeton and later Harvard Law, recalls all-nighters spent on Super Mario Brothers and Japanese fighting games.
Putting aside debate and school government, Panton said, “our favorite activity…was video games.”
“We would spend many hours playing video games, often until the sun came up. In reality, Ted was a much better player than I was—he beat me in everything—but I think I was sufficiently competitive that he felt somewhat challenged,” Panton told The Daily Beast. “I’m a far better video game player today as a result of Ted Cruz.”
Video games have only once entered into Cruz’s comments about government and public policy: in December, when he publicly mused about the overuse of drones in warfare.
“There are also concerns from the perspective of national security. No administration has used drones as aggressively as has the Obama administration. And I’m worried about what I would call video-game warfare,” Cruz said at a Foreign Policy Initiative forum in Washington, D.C.
Here’s where video games help: Cruz suffers from a perception of rigidity. When asked a question, his responses are always airtight and measured, the mark of a former debate champion. Often these conversations seem stilted and rehearsed. Unlike a more gregarious politician like Sen. John McCain, Cruz doesn’t make unscripted jokes or pal around much.
If asked a question Wednesday that he was previously asked on Monday, he will repeat his original answer nearly word for word, as if it were memorized, raising the risk of questions about how genuine he really is.
His passion for video games, and the way he uses them to connect with his children, cuts through some of that.
“I play with my daughters,” he told The Daily Beast. “One of the fun things that I do with Caroline and Catherine is we get on the iPhone or the iPad and play games. Drives my wife crazy. She doesn’t like it, but both girls like to curl up and play games. In our household, I’m the one in charge of taking the girls to Chuck E. Cheese, and it’s not much of a secret that I don’t mind doing so. I’m trying to get brownie points from [his wife] Heidi for taking them to Chuck E. Cheese, and she’s like, ‘What, are you kidding? You have more fun there than they do.’”
Geeks are cool now, they rule the world. So Cruz’s love for video games is an admission that presidential candidates have only really been able to make in the past few years.
But there is one time a video game was used against Cruz. In Texas’s 2012 Senate Republican primary, David Dewhurst launched an attack ad accusing Cruz of being “PAC-Man.” Dewhurst used the classic video game and accompanying theme song to highlight the funds Cruz received from super PACs in Washington, D.C. The ad wasn’t enough to put Dewhurst over the top, however: Cruz ended up winning by 14 points.
Even if you didn’t choose to not vote for him for being a gamer, you wouldn’t have voted for him anyway because he listens to that longhair rock and roll.
Level isn’t so important. But If Cruz uses Fus Roh Dah on Mitch and JonBon, I’ll bear his children.
And I’m a dude ;)
That’s like a Crack Dealer who worries you might be getting too into the Quality Value Cable Shopping Network.
LOL...I raised four boys...
That should answer your question ...
Final Fantasy 7.
Same here I have FF 5-12. omit 11.
You know it’s kind of funny. I went Pheasant/Quail/trap & skeet shooting for the first time last November at Primland in VA last November. It was scary how well I hit moving targets...I attribute it to COD. My brothers thought I would fall on my face. I was hitting 3 skeet thrown at a time with my wife’s Grandfathers 20 gauge.
I know a lot of people make jokes about the work habits of members of congress, but in reality they are some of the busiest people on Earth, especially individuals who take their job seriously, like Ted Cruz.
You’re pulling our chain, right? I owned a chain of video arcades/snack bars and I don’t hold something that silly against him.
Sudden Strike and Majesty. Lost both of them in old computers somehow.
Ted Cruz requests a correction from the liberal media: He is actually on level 357 of Candy Crush
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/05/28/ted-cruz-requests-a-correction-from-the-liberal-media-he-is-actually-on-level-357-of-candy-crush/
My favorites video games of all time are : Metal Gear series, Metal of Honor, Syphon Filter series, Bad Company, Battle Field series , Crysis series, Call of Duty, Splinter Cell.
Remember the Gene Pinball game in the late 70s with a extra wide pinball machine with about 4 or 5 flippers ?
Or the Space Cadet Pinball game ?
The Pentagon sometimes train troops on video games to teach them warfare tactics.
A time wasting activity is watching soap operas on afternoon TV dramas.
Imagine how many divorces that has caused.
The real time wasters are daytime soap operas and reruns of daytime game shows that are 40 years old like the Price is Right in sydndacation.
What ? Ted Cruz doesn’t eat Skittles and Yoplay Yogart ?
That’s it, I am not going to vote for Ted Cruz either, Sarcasm.
That is one of the most immature and childish reasons why someone would NOT vote for Ted Cruz because he enjoys playing video games in his spare time.
I do remember those. LOL. I was only a mild pinball player except for the one “Star Player” game. But I watched other people. It was an art. You had to know just how much you could shake the machine without tilting. LOL.
Heh heh heh. Love it.
The Addams Family pinball game is the best I’ve ever played.
Oh I remember that one, too. Pinball was in many ways cooler than video games.
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