Ted Cruz Decides to Run for President
Two Constitutional Wrongs
don't make Senator Cruz’ Presidential Ambitions Right for America
and it doesn't make him Right for the White House.
Consider this. The man from Texas has been positioning himself ever since he arrived in Washington. The paint on his Senate office walls has barely dried yet the junior Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz is all over the news playing to conservatives and he has just declared his intention to run for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2016. I think it’s a bad idea and I want to be one of the first to say why. In a word his candidacy will be divisive. It will split the conservative vote over the question of his natural born citizenship and it will allow Jeb Bush to win the nomination. His bid to become our next President is not right and it is not right for America.
Having said that I would also like to say that Ted Cruz makes a wonderful Senator. I applaud all of his efforts in the U.S. Senate. If I lived in Texas I would have voted for him in his successful campaign to become the junior Senator from Texas. I would vote for him a thousand times for Senator but I will not vote for him once in his bid to be the next President of the United States. He is just as constitutionally unqualified to be our next President as Barack Obama is and for exactly the same reason. His parents were not both American citizens at the time of his birth. That is why Barack Obama is not constitutionally qualified to be the President of the United States, and that is why Ted Cruz is not constitutionally qualified to be the next President of the United States… Ted Cruz was born in Canada and his father was a Canadian citizen at the time of his birth. Two constitutional wrongs don't make his presidential ambitions right. It is precisely because of his birthplace and because of his father’s Canadian citizenship that Ted Cruz is not a “natural born citizen” in the strictest sense of the term.
There has been a long standing argument in America about what it means to be a “natural born citizen”. The phrase is used only once in the Constitution. It is used only when it comes to the qualifications for the office of President. It is not used anywhere else in the entire Constitution. It is not mentioned when it comes to the qualifications to be a member of the House of Representatives or the Senate. The phrase “natural born citizen” is unique to the qualifications for the office of the Presidency and as such it should be handled with extreme care. It should not be bandied about with irreverence like the Democrats did in 2008 by nominating Barack Obama and like some Republicans are willing to do right now by supporting Ted Cruz in this Republican Presidential Primary. I prefer to understand the phrase “natural born citizen” it in the strictest sense of the term, not in the loosest sense of the term or in the least restrictive way possible.
Nevertheless I will always support Ted Cruz as a United States Senator but I am opposed to him running for President. My position does not depend on which side is actually right in this long running debate over the meaning of the phrase, “natural born citizen”. I believe it is a gray area of constitutional law that may never be definitively settled as long as people are free to think differently, but just because the Democrats played footloose and fancy free with the Constitution in 2008 when they nominated Barack Obama doesn’t mean that the Republican Party should do the same thing with Ted Cruz in 2016. Two wrongs don't make a right. The debate about Ted Cruz qualifications to be President is not about his resume, his loyalty, or his conservative credentials. This debate is about the next Democrat who wants to be our President whose father might be the President of Iran or the King of Saudi Arabia because we have established a legal precedent for him to run. We must stop interpreting the Constitution liberally and start interpreting it literally.
I have heard the argument that anyone who doesn’t support Ted Cruz in his attempt to be President because he was born in Canada or because his father was a Canadian is buying right into the liberal’s agenda. That is not true. On the contrary, the opposite is actually true.
Progressives in the Republican Party are very happy that Ted Cruz has thrown his political hat into the ring because his candidacy will only serve to split the conservative vote and allow the Establishment’s candidate, Jeb Bush to win the Republican nomination in 2016. Ted Cruz’s campaign for the Republican nomination will prove to be divisive even if he doesn't say a single bad word about any of the other candidates. Ted Cruz is a good man and a good conservative and he should remain in the United States Senate where we need him and where God has placed him. I hope he will one day become the Majority Leader of the Senate instead of trying to use his newly acquired Senate seat as a spring board to the White House.
My personal opinion is that until the definition of a natural born citizen is resolved once and for all, anyone whose constitutional eligibility is even slightly questionable should not seek the highest office in the land or trouble the country this way. It only establishes and reinforces a precedent for disregarding the original intent of the the Founding Fathers and it imposes a liberal interpretation of the Constitution on the entire country. I prefer to err on the side of safety when handling something as important as this which cannot be definitively proven either one way or the other. It is wise to climb carefully when scaling a slippery slope.
Anyone who wants to be President so bad that he is willing to put the Nation and the Constitution through another test like the one that Barack Obama put the country through in the last two Presidential elections is not worthy of holding that office no matter how conservative he is… A love and respect for the Constitution is of the utmost importance to me when I make my next choice for President of the United States of America.
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