The 2016 presidential campaign got under way this week with Texas Senator Ted Cruz formally entering the race.  For a nation thirsting for leadership, his announcement came not a moment too soon.  Senator Cruz asked us to imagine a President who will honor the Constitution.  His references to the Constitution were met immediately by a storm of criticism and ridicule from both Democrats, in and out of the media, and the Republican establishment.  The reason is obvious.  Ted Cruz is a threat to the status quo.   The Democrats and the Republican leadership equally serve that status quo, which has given us an $18 trillion debt, a stagnant economy, 50 million people on food stamps, undefended borders, and a world on the brink of war; a world in which America gives aid and comfort to terrorists, sells out Israel and looks to France for leadership.  France?  We truly are living in a world gone mad when an elected official’s pledge of allegiance to the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, is dismissed as the raving of an extremist.

I commend to all of you the words of that proud Texan who solemnly declared, “My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution – the subversion – the destruction of the Constitution.”  No, those words were not spoken by Ted Cruz this week, but by Texas Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, in 1974.  Ms. Jordan’s words bring to mind several pertinent questions.

If Barbara Jordan was hailed as a savior of our system of government, then how can Ted Cruz be condemned as its destroyer?  If Barbara Jordan correctly identified faithful adherence to the Constitution as the only safeguard against a lawless President in 1974, then how can Ted Cruz’s faith in the Constitution be a joke in 2015?  Simply put, if Barbara Jordan was right, then how can Ted Cruz be wrong?

The answer is, Ted Cruz is not wrong.  What has gone terribly wrong since 1974 is that the leadership in both Parties have forgotten that they serve the People, not the lobbyists, and not themselves.  Ted Cruz threatens the comfort of a corrupt political system.  Therefore, the “experts” tell us he can’t win.  The same experts said the same thing about Ronald Reagan.  They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.  Pollster Frank Luntz found that the 2012 political ad that rated highest among both Republicans and Democrats came from a man who looked into the camera and said, “the politicians in Washington better start listening to the People.”  That man was Ted Cruz.  Oh, one more thing, when asked if he would support Ted Cruz should he get the nomination, New York Republican Peter King replied, “I’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it.”  Don’t wait Pete, jump!