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.
Sorry to hear that.
I am so sure that President Cruz will regret the fact you didn’t vote for him for the sane reason, Horrors of Horrors!, that he is a video game addict.
Another stupid reason for not voting for someone.
What a stupid post.
Something wrong with playing a video game?
Should we ban them so that people’s behavior conforms more to your desire to control it?
I'd stick to reading...
No, it is a damn good reason as I owned a bar in 78 and had space invaders installed. I had customers who got hooked and lost their jobs. They said they saw space invaders coming at them in their sleep and they killed them in their dreams. I had the damn game taken out. An addict is an addict. That is why he is in the Senate as you can work part time for the Gov.and be an addict.
‘Candy Crush.’?
That’s a girl game. Is this a hit piece?
Hold on. You owned a place that served ALCOHOL and you were worried about people being addicted to VIDEO GAMES?
That's like a Crack Dealer who worries you might be getting too into the Quality Value Cable Shopping Network.
Then Tetris was a real obsession for me...”
I LOVE Tetris. Have tried to get my oldest grandson interested in playing with me with zero success, even though his father and I played when his father was a teenager. Grandson is just totally into future plans for designing race cars in Europe after he finishes school and just refuses to play anything other than a game which includes “speed” and “race” - and we have all of them ever made.
We also have the original Nintendo Mario which the little boys in the neighborhood love to come over and play.
“Tell me about it. I play Call Of Duty”
There you go. Now that’s a good game.
Team Deathmatch. Do you shoot the other
players, when they suck, to get rid of them?
I’m playing it on my PS3. I downloaded it from PSN.
“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.
Mr. B: Actually, since his answers are based on unchanging core principles, giving the same answer would be proof on his “genuine” nature.”
Exactly! And how many other candidates just repeat the same answer for every question? Or have a 3-4 word mantra they repeat endlessly? Cruz’ answers are intelligent, detailed, and exactly to the point. Of course the MSM has a problem with that!
He just assured himself of losing.
Playing video games is the dumbest reason I've ever seen to not vote for someone, and I've seen plenty.
OOoo. Hit a little too close to home, did I? :)
Ask folks over 65. You might just find out many seniors have seen Gen X types hooked on games.
Yes. It has been a few years since I played, but one way you played the game each level would reward you with a bigger rocket. The second to last one was a space shuttle. The very last one had the whole roof turn into a rocket and take off. After that it would start over to the tiny rocket.
The other way you could play rewarded you with different animals running across the bottom. I did not play that one as frequently so I forget exactly what they all were. I remember ostriches. There may have been things other than animals but I just can’t remember.
I got really good AND fast at it. I am sure my tetris skills are no where near what they used to be.
I'm Hooked on Phonics.
Hooked on Monkey Phonics.
And his campaign was going so well. I guess there’s nothing left to do but get behind Bush-Mittens 2016...
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