Summary
We’re going to wrap up our live blog for the morning. Here’s a summary of where things stand:
- Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas, is running for president, he announced.
- Cruz outlined a hard-right conservative platform calling for an appeal of the president’s health care law, abolishment of the IRS, a flat tax, restrictions on abortion, support for Israel, a redoubled war on “radical Islamic terrorism” and more (video here).
- Cruz’s announcement was met with enthusiastic cheers from the auditorium crowd at Liberty University in Virginia, where attendance for students was mandatory.
- The notable rhetorical trope of Cruz’s speech was a repetition of the word “imagine,” as in, “imagine a president who says I will honor the Constitution and under no circumstances will Iran be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.”
- Hillary Clinton spoke at a simultaneous, if not exactly parallel, event at the Center for American Progress about investment in urban infrastructure and employment programs. She did not make any announcements.
Remember that crazy viral Too Many Cooks video
Updated
Reactions: Ted Cruz announcement
Judging by online reactions to Senator Cruz’s announcement that he is running for president, it was preachy, idealistic, and off-the-cuff.
The Internet judged the Cruz announcement to be:
Preachy (USA Today):
His speech had the ring of the religious testimony of an evangelical church. He declared his opposition to abortion and his support of traditional marriage. He emotionally described how his father’s embrace of Jesus saved his parents’ marriage. His father, Rafael, a pastor at a suburban Dallas church, fled Castro’s Cuba in 1957.
Teleprompter-less (The Hill):
Cruz made 2016 announcement speech without a teleprompter
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) made his speech announcing that he would run for the presidency without the assistance of a teleprompter, his spokesman said Monday.
Imaginary:
Sen. Ted Cruz used the word "imagine" 38 times during his presidential announcement today at Liberty University.
— Jose A. DelReal (@jdelreal) March 23, 2015
Underfunded (Bloomberg):
But a review of Cruz’s campaign finances shows surprising weakness when it comes to small donors. Contributors giving Cruz less than $200 per election cycle made up just 16 percent of his funding base through the end of 2014, compared to Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s 43 percent, according to the Center for Responsive Politics
Awesome (Draft Ted Cruz PAC):
Inbox: Draft Ted Cruz for President PAC Congratulates Cruz
— Rick Klein (@rickklein) March 23, 2015
This is an interesting factoid, playing on the fact that the last time a first-term senator with a law degree ran for president against Hillary Clinton he was inaugurated:
It's Cruz's 810th day as a US senator. Obama announced on his 768th day (Numbers crunched by @chrisdonovan)
— Michael Falcone (@michaelpfalcone) March 23, 2015
The Clinton event is ending. “Amen,” she says, in conclusion, in a transparent play to the sympathies of people of faith in the audience. “I love sessions like this. It’s really nice to get back into an evidence-based discussion.”
Dan Roberts points out that for the sparsity of her speech at this roundtable, Clinton has managed to bring up the family foundation – donations to which from repressive foreign governments have been in the news – twice:
Hillary Clinton has spoken twice in 50mins at this morning's urban roundtable in DC and referenced the Clinton Foundation on both occasions
— Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) March 23, 2015
ICYMI: CSPAN has cut video of the Cruz announcement, representative reactions to which we are even now assembling for your review.
VIDEO: COMPLETE @TedCruz Presidential Campaign Announcement http://t.co/UooLt9kix2 pic.twitter.com/zLAVb2qpms
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 23, 2015
Clinton: “We have at the last count I say 5.6m people in America between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither at school nor at work.”
“Part of the challenge is working with companies that will do exactly what you’re saying, making it possible to have these entry points... one thing that Germany does is instead of having an unemployment system, they have a wage subsidy system...”
None of Clinton’s lines wins cheers or applause.
UPDATE: HAR:
The @bpolitics switch-off between Cruz speech and Hillary policy talk is like switching from Michael Bay to the Yule log channel.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) March 23, 2015
Updated
At the top of the blog we’ve swapped out the video stream of the Cruz event for the stream of the Clinton event. NB: those seated people with binders are not at the Cruz event.
Back at the Clinton event at the Center for American Progress, a guy in glasses with a glass of water in front of him says “What we’re learning on the ground is that there’s no silver bullet to these urban challenges.”
Updated
Cruz finishes to cheers
“We will restore that shining city on a hill that is the United States of America. Thank you and God bless you.”
Cruz is done. Big cheers at Liberty University. “Almost a megachurch sermon,” somebody on CNN says. They’re right, from the pacing evangelist all the way down to the electric bass.
There are some supporters of presidential hopeful Rand Paul – Stand with Rand types – in the audience today, as in any campus crowd. And apparently there are some castration threats out against them.
Getting a little chippy on Liberty U Yik Yak pic.twitter.com/iKO2X602DV
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) March 23, 2015
Cruz announces candidacy
“Today I am announcing that I am running for president of the United States,” Cruz says.
First.
Cruz: 'Imagine'
The touchstone word of Cruz’s speech is “imagine,” whether he is inviting the crowd to imagine the abolition of Common Core education standards or the abolition of the IRS or “imagine a president who stands unapologetically with the nation of Israel” or “imagine a president who says I will honor the Constitution and under no circumstances will Iran be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.”
That’s in the Constitution? Whatever. Let us be the first of a million people to make this joke:
He’s still going.
“Imagine it’s 1775, and you and I were sitting there in Richmond listening to Patrick Henry say, ‘Give me Liberty or Give me Death.’”
Cruz has been speaking for about 15 minutes now and he still hasn’t declared his candidacy for president. He’s throwing progressively larger rhetorical punches, though.
And now a hint at why Cruz picked 23 March for his presidential announcement:
“Five years ago today, the president signed Obamacare into law,” he says, to resounding boos in the hall.
“Imagine in 2017 a new president signing legislation repealing every word of Obamacare,” Cruz says.
The question is, would any presidential candidate dare to campaign on such a platform.
Here’s good news: We’ll be talking about flat taxes in 2016! “Imagine a flat tax, that lets every American fill out his taxes on a post card,” Cruz says. “Imagine abolishing the IRS.”
'Imagine abolishing the IRS' Cruz says, to a massive cheer, surprisingly even bigger than the 'imagine having jobs when you graduate' line
— Alan Yuhas (@AlanYuhas) March 23, 2015
Updated
Pop Quiz: which phrases did Ted Cruz just use in a passage of his speech (he seems to be working without notes) about “reigniting the promise of America”? (Hint, it’s e)
a) American exceptionalism
b) clarion voice
c) City on a Hill
d) unique nation in the history of the world
e) all of the above
Clinton has partners on her panel and has passed along the microphone for a moment. We’re jumping fully into the Cruz canoe.
Cruz has been narrating the dramatic history of his family background and of his childhood and student years.
Cruz is telling his life story in the heroic third person. “Where he was alone and scared... At the age of 17, he went to get two jobs to help pay his way through school...”
People cheering at random places Cruz mentions (Kenya, California, etc). Also at mention that Mrs Cruz is Ted's BFF pic.twitter.com/TpQ60kcm9U
— Alan Yuhas (@AlanYuhas) March 23, 2015
OK, we’re going to go a cappella. Who said it?
They’re both drinking far too much. They’re living a fast life. When I was three, my father decided to leave my mother and I.
It’s not about race. White and black citizens of a city like Atlanta both have low upward mobility.
Invited him to a Bible study... and there my father gave his life to Jesus Christ.
We need to think hard about what we’re going to do, now that people are moving back to and living in cities.
[Applause] there are people who wonder if faith is real.
We’ve got them now, speaking in parallel mere miles apart, your 2016 presidential candidates (Hillary Clinton has not declared a presidential candidacy):
Clinton: How do we make sure our cities are good places to live and work?
Cruz: God Bless Liberty University. I am thrilled to join you today at the largest Christian University in the world. Today I want to talk with you about the promise of America.
Clinton: What we can do in partnership with the public and private sector. Let me just make three quick points. I think that we for a long time at the federal level but also the state level....
Cruz: She had a difficult father. A man who drank far too much and frankly didn’t think that women should be educated.
Clinton: But that raises the second point. How do we repair and update our water infrastructure. To say nothing of keeping up with an electric grid...
Cruz: [Applause] Imagine a teenage boy.
Clinton: Potholes exploding, all kinds of issues. We have to really invest.
Updated
Clinton to speak
Is the contrast between the soft-rock uplift in the air at the Ted Cruz event and Hillary Clinton’s imminent appearance – she’s being introduced now – at a wonky Center for American Progress roundtable telling, for how the 2016 presidential election will play out?
We report, you decide. Here’s a video stream of the Clinton event:
We’ve posted a video stream of the Cruz event atop the blog. Enjoy. The band, if you haven’t been listening, is kind of late-STP with an extremely diluted sprinkle of Monuments.
At the Cruz event so far: rock, faith:
'Our God is greater, our God is stronger,' sings the rock band opening for Cruz. All stand. It's uncomfortable. pic.twitter.com/3q1hFRQ4Ri
— Alan Yuhas (@AlanYuhas) March 23, 2015
Guardian Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts (@robertsdan) is with Clinton this morning, while the Guardian’s Alan Yuhas is at the Cruz event:
Ted Cruz to announce he's fronting a five-piece rock band with several Liberty University students pic.twitter.com/diOYnsOktB
— Alan Yuhas (@AlanYuhas) March 23, 2015
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the biggest day in American politics since the third season of House of Cards sucked. Whatever else happens this Monday – barring some truly unforeseen twist – historians will remember 23 March, 2015, as the official start of the 2016 presidential campaign.
Republican senator Ted Cruz of Texas is scheduled to declare his presidential candidacy in a speech at Liberty University, the Christian institution in Lynchburg, Virginia, at 10am ET. Cruz’s was expected to the be first of what may be as many as 20 (twenty) eventual announcements on the Republican side of a willingness to lead the country out of the nightmare of the Barack Obama years.
Another major national politician, Hillary Clinton, also was expected to speak today, twice actually. Following a morning speech on income inequality at the Center for American Progress, Clinton was to deliver the keynote address at a ceremony sponsored by Syracuse University to recognize the country’s top political reporter, as identified by the judges for the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting. The recipient will be honored with $5,000 and a ceremonial blocking by Clinton of that reporter’s phone number.
Join us for a day of politics fun!
I'm running for President and I hope to earn your support! pic.twitter.com/0UTqaIoytP
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 23, 2015
