LONDONDERRY, N.H. — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz outlined his own vision for the country Tuesday night, miles away from the nation’s capitol where Congress and members of the political elite — the “Washington cartel” in Cruz’s words — have gathered for President Obama’s final State of the Union address.
“Tonight the State of the Union is strong and the state of the American people is we are waking up,” Cruz, who’s second in the Washington Examiner’s latest presidential power rankings, told hundreds of voters packed like sardines into a middle-school cafeteria.
The Texas senator spent most of his speech Tuesday previewing what his first State of the Union would look like should he be elected president.
“In 2018, let me tell you how I hope the State of the Union goes,” he began. “‘My fellow Americans, the State of the Union is strong. Just over a year ago, millions of Americans rose up and shocked the Washington cartel — they said enough with politicians who don’t tell the truth — and in the face of that grassroots revolution, boy have things changed in Washington.'”
A confident Cruz, excited by his momentum in both early voting states, promised to have a “simple flat tax” instituted in the U.S. by 2018. He pledged to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, dissolve Obamacare and invite a handful of allies to his State of the Union, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Let me say, Mr. Prime Minister, I enjoyed seeing you just recently at the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem,” Cruz said, picturing the stuffy cafeteria as the House Chamber circa January 2018.
Cruz, who’s developed the reputation of a pariah in Washington, embellished his remarks Tuesday with bits of humor here and there. At one point, Cruz said he would happily invite the Little Sisters of the Poor — a group of Catholic nuns granted temporary relief from Obamacare’s birth control mandate by the Supreme Court – to his State of the Union in 2018.
“If you’re litigating against nuns, you’ve probably done something wrong,” he quipped.
Minutes later, Cruz joked that by 2018, left-wing billionaire George Soros will have opened “the William Jefferson Clinton museum of youth outreach.”
Shifting back to a serious tone, the Texas senator conceded that a State of the Union address from him “sounds distant.”
“But let me tell you something,” he continued, “all across the state of N.H. people are waking up and they are waking up powerfully.”
“I believe that 2016 will be an election like 1980,” Cruz said, drawing his loudest applause of the night.
