In a seamless speech that was part biographical, part inspirational and all political, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, formally announced to a raucous crowd of about 10,000 Liberty University students that he was running for president.
Just after midnight he had Tweeted that he was running.
Cruz, a trial lawyer, worked the university’s Vines Center, which is in the round, by expertly walking from one section of the stage to another. “I want to talk to you about the promise of America,” said Cruz as he described the lives of his parents and his own. His father was a Cuban refugee who escaped to America and made good but Cruz said that the family unit endured only when his father “gave his life to Jesus Christ.”
Liberty is a Christian university and attendance at the weekly “Convocations” is mandatory for resident students. The audience was enthusiastic, especially when Cruz said, “Instead of a president who boycotts Benjamin Netanyahu, imagine a president who stands unapologetically with the nation of Israel.” Cruz got a standing ovation.
Cruz ran through his familiar themes of repealing “every word” of Obamacare and abolishing the IRS and Common Core. He told the students they were “courageous conservatives” and said, “This is our fight.”
“We will come back and restore that shining city on the hill that is the United States of America.”
His wife, Heidi, and their two young daughters were in the audience and took the stage as students later mobbed the senator.
Cruz is off to New York later today for interviews and tomorrow returns to the Senate.