Cruz Announcement at LU – Reaganesque Offering to a Crippled Nation

 “This is our fight. The answer will not come from Washington. It will come only from the men and women across this country, from men and women, from people of faith, from lovers of liberty, from people who respect the Constitution. It will only come as it has come from every other time of challenge in this country, when the American people stand together and say we will get back to the principles that have made this country great. We will get back and restore that shining city on a hill - that is the United States of America.” - Ted Cruz, March 23, 2015 at Liberty University

Ted Cruz asked Liberty students to imagine a lot of things about America and most of them were connected to the nation’s original vision of freedom and opportunity. It would seem no one would find fault with such an exercise in restoration and patriotic revival, but as expected liberals and the indifferent found fodder to lob at the strongman of the Senate from the state of Texas. 

With no notes or prompter Cruz dashed across the platform, fully animated, impeccably articulated and left nothing out of his announcement. He touched on every area of foreign and domestic policy and did not flinch when it came to the so called “hot button” social issues like marriage and abortion. 

Finding the best things to say is not new for Cruz who blasted the President’s health care law for 21 hours on the Senate floor only one year after being elected to the Senate. More than a rhetorician Cruz speaks from conviction and it is impossible not to feel that he means every word he says. 

Some say he is too new on the scene and we should opt for a more experienced politician for our next president, but in the search for a new voice unencumbered by Washington political machinery he stands alone. Beltway baggage would drag him down to the same speed as the other tired offerings of the GOP like Jeb Bush and Rand Paul and there is some question about whether he can appeal to the grassroots supporters to help him raise the money needed to succeed in his bid for the Oval Office. 

On the eve of his announcement his greatest detractors were not the liberals, but the old school middle of the road, stuck in mid-air conservatives like Bill O’Reilly. Only hours after Cruz made his fiery speech the Factor offered warnings about his being too far to the right of center. 

As a minister of the gospel and a fifty year student of the Bible I immediately recalled echoes of Christ’s stern warning to the lazy - we’ve got it made church - of the Laodicean’s to either get on with it, or get out of it, or he would reject them completely. 

“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”(Rev 3: 15-16) 

O’Reilly’s call for a middle of the road candidate is the equivalent of sending a boy scout to a five alarm fire. The liberal policies of Barack Obama have set the nation on fire with anti-constitutional corruption, lies and a boost in the general acceptance of all things sordid and perverted. Liberals of the day deny that there is even a smell of smoke much less the burning of the city of Rome. What calls for an expert fire captain and crew - cannot be dealt with by sending a good ole boy and a troop of boy scouts. 

The nation has gone as far to the left as it can go without falling off the cliff to its own demise, but bringing it back away from the edge will not be accomplished by a poky on center nice guy with some folksy sentiments about the good old days. 

Cruz is not only the most Reaganesque candidate, but he is a visionary with the same insight as our revered founding fathers. Anything less would not be enough in this day of decline. Who wants too little – too late?