A video showing 18-year-old Ted Cruz has surfaced online. The video was shot in 1988 at the Second Baptist School in Houston, when Cruz was a senior in high school. The 18-year-old Ted Cruz was asked what his aspirations were and he jokingly responded by talking about world domination, wealth, and girls.
“Take over the world, world domination, you know, rule everything,”
This video of Cruz as a teenager isn’t the first we’ve heard of the senator’s formative years. The Daily Beast published an article with the help of Cruz’s former Princeton classmates.
One of his friends from university said that Ted hasn’t changed since he’s known him.
“The Ted Cruz that I knew at 17 years old is exactly the same as the Ted Cruz I know at 42 years old. He was very conservative then, and an outspoken conservative. He remains strongly conservative today.”
Others who also went to school with Cruz had some less positive things to say about him. As the Daily Beast reported, several former classmates used pretty ugly words to describe the Republican senator.
“… words like ‘abrasive,’ ‘intense,’ ‘strident,’ ‘crank,’ and ‘arrogant.’ Four independently offered the word ‘creepy,’ with some pointing to Cruz’s habit of donning a paisley bathrobe and walking to the opposite end of their dorm’s hallway where the female students lived.”
Craig Mazin, former roommate of Ted, said that he would receive complaints from females down the hall asking him to keep his roommate away from their dorms.
When asked about Ted running for president, Mazin said that Cruz would be his last choice for president. He told the Daily Beast that he would rather have the president be randomly selected from a phonebook.
“I would rather have anybody else be the president of the United States. Anyone.”
Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, is also featured in the video. The person behind the camera asked Ted’s father how he felt about his son’s aspirations.
“Do you think Ted’s going to rule the world one day?”
Rafael replied to the question by simply saying “I hope not.” But the possibility of Ted being in charge of the most powerful country on Earth may actually be a real possibility at this point.
While Cruz has done fairly well throughout the race for the Republican nomination, his campaign really picked up steam after Ben Carson’s faltered. For some time, Carson was in second place but then dropped significantly in the polls. Some commentators believe that a number of Carson’s supporters moved over to the Cruz camp, which helped propel his campaign.
In most polls, Sen. Cruz is in second place behind the juggernaut that is Donald Trump. Earlier this month, the senator was found to have a slight lead over Trump in Iowa. That poll, which was conducted by Fox News , showed Cruz with a four point lead in Iowa.
It’s worth noting that while Cruz and Trump were polling close together in Iowa, the national polls have been much different. Trump currently has an RCP average lead of 15.8 percentage points over his closest rival which is Cruz.
As the Washington Post reported, Cruz has lost the advantage he had in Iowa earlier this month. Another Fox News poll, which was released Sunday, found that Trump had made a significant improvement in the crucial primary state.
The new poll found that Trump jumped 11 percentage points above Cruz. Mr. Trump’s poll numbers changed that dramatically in just a two week time period.
We’ll find out just next month who will win Iowa. While Trump has a tremendous amount of support according to the polls, Iowa voters may surprise everyone.
[Photo by Andrew Harnik / AP]