Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
Sen. Ted Cruz spent the weekend campaigning for president in New Hampshire, and he was on quite the hot streak, in person and online. Naturally he was running around making
promises to abolish both the Education Department
and the IRS, and Sunday night, the Texas Republican tweeted:
Federal govt has no business sticking its nose in education. We need to repeal every word of Common Core! #nhpolitics #MakeDCListen
— @tedcruz
As ThinkProgress points out, this "repeal" argument suffers a little from the fact that Common Core is
not a federal law. The federal government didn't create Common Core and it doesn't require Common Core—though it did offer incentives to states that adopted the standards. But arguing for federal repeal of something that is not a federal law wasn't even necessarily the weekend's high/low point for Cruz.
At a Sunday event, as Cruz ranted about how "the whole world is on fire" thanks to "the Obama-Clinton foreign policy of leading from behind."
“Ted Cruz literally just scared a little girl in NH,” [Tampa Bay Times political editor Adam] Smith wrote. “‘The world is on fire?!’ she asked, repeating his line on Obama-Clinton foreign policy.”
“The world is on fire,” Cruz replied, turning to face the girl and her mother. “Yes! Your world is on fire!”
Then he paused, perhaps considering that presidential candidates are supposed to kiss little children, not terrify them, and added "But you know what? Your mommy is here and everyone is here to make sure that the world you grow up in is even better." Oh, wow! Even better than "on fire." That's a really amazing promise.
The real message from Cruz this weekend seems simple: A Ted Cruz presidency sure would not be short on crazy.
Video of Cruz getting his scary on is below the fold.
