It took only hours after my story posted last November for the emails to stack up: Ted Cruz can’t run for president, he’s Canadian, they screamed.
Just weeks after his unlikely election in Texas, the senator-elect was already dropping hints he had greater ambitions by diagnosing his party’s ills and prescribing solutions for the future in a Washington ballroom.
But that straight-forward news story for Politico ended up producing a more provocative follow-up as a result of the deluge of emails: Was Cruz even eligible?
On Jan. 7, my story basically drew the conclusion that he likely was, but that it wasn’t the clearest of cases.
But Cruz’s team was summarily dismissive, declining my request to interview the senator and refusing to engage specific questions about his birthplace.
The matter-of-fact statement I was provided:
“Ted is a U.S. citizen by birth, having been born in Calgary to an American-born mother,” said Cruz spokesman Sean Rushton, who declined to elaborate on the matter, saying his boss is focused on his work ahead in the Senate.
It didn’t seem like the unflappable, superbly confident Cruz would be moved from his position by the drip of queries, snickers and barbs that would be thrown from the chattering class in the ensuing months.
He would wow them with wit in South Carolina and then Iowa. (He completes the trifecta in New Hampshire on Friday.) Ted Cruz doesn’t lose debates, the theory goes.
But the turning point appeared to be earlier this month when even some of his own supposedly natural allies sidestepped a full-throated defense of the still-simmering question of his citizenship.
The inimitable Donald Trump and shameless Ann Coulter weren’t convinced — and neither was his colleague in Liberty, Rand Paul.
If this trio wouldn’t back him — what would Democrats say?
And even worse, the dreaded mainstream media.
Predictably, Cruz has shown his disdain for the press as his profile has risen. He’s derided BuzzFeed as “left-wing,” and recently told Time he believes the media renders conservatives “stupid or evil.”
It’s easy money for a conservative to beat up the press and Cruz is self-assured he’s smarter than most of the reporters who trail him.
That’s why its striking that a media outlet — albeit a home state one — ended up forcing his hand, making him cry uncle on the question of his citizenship.
After The Dallas Morning News quoted an attorney asserting flatly — “He’s a Canadian,” — Cruz appeared to conclude the issue had become too radioactive to ignore.
The statement he released Monday night — more than eight months after the questions had first been posed to his advisers– oozed with animus. Like a child being forced into an apology by his parents. A necessary — but tortured performance:
“Given the raft of stories today about my birth certificate, it must be a slow news day,” he began. ”The facts of my birth are straightforward,” he continued, in a sentence that lacks veracity simply because it had to be written.
He was a U.S. citizen because even though he was conceived in Canada, his mother was born in Delaware, the statement continued. He had never taken any steps to claim Canadian citizenship, he said.
But in the very next breath, he concedes the case to the Morning News — a stunning development for the usually unwavering Cruz.
“Now the Dallas Morning News says that I may technically have dual citizenship. Assuming that is true, then sure, I will renounce any Canadian citizenship.”
“Then sure” — one can almost envision him huddled in a room with his advisers and throwing his hands up in withering disgust. Fine, whatever. If the media says so.
During his short eight months in the Senate, Ted Cruz has always been in command, on offense, driving opponents into a corner. Whether it be Chuck Hagel. Or Dianne Feinstein. Or President Obama.
But this statement — which could very well end up in a seedy Super PAC ad two and a half years from now — revealed a rare moment.
It was the humbling of Ted Cruz.
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