Ted Cruz is Choosing His Terrain

Senator Ted Cruz's announcement tomorrow at Liberty University that he'll be officially running for president, I think actually makes a lot of sense for him. Forget having an "exploratory committee" or whatever. (I've often wondered about that formality, anyway--if you've actually, seriously wanted to run for president for awhile, wouldn't you already have a pretty good idea what your chances look like?) What does he need to know? He's more credible than Donald Trump. He's more consistently conservative than Jeb Bush or Mike Huckabee. And he's less of a snooze than Bobby Jindal. (And basically, what Kate Nocera says here.)

Choosing to announce the decision at Liberty University, one of the biggest evangelical learning institutions, makes a lot of sense, as well. He's not just the first in the race, he's going right after the attention of the religious right. (He's connections to the Dominionist Seven Mountains movement via his father work in his favor with this group. The potential promise of a Christianist theocracy gives me the willies, of course.)  He believes things that just ain't so and has a shaky history with the truth, but these things aren't necessarily drawbacks in modern politics. (Sigh.)

This should definitely be interesting.