“Think just how different the world would be,” said Senator Ted Cruz on Monday, in a speech so packed with vision-spinning and the word “imagine” that it seemed as if John Lennon had returned, as a Hispanic Texan running a hard-right, anti-establishment, Christian-themed campaign for the White House. Weird. But weird is the essence of Mr. Cruz, who is now the first major Republican in the 2016 race. Let the fund-raising begin. Commence the swelling of the Cruz coffers, and of Mr. Cruz’s public profile beyond the gated confines of C-Span and Fox News.

The “imagines” that Mr. Cruz doled out were chosen for his audience, students at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. Robust cheers greeted one of the first: “Imagine young people coming out of school with four, five, six job offers.” He summoned many images that would be hard to argue with. “Imagine instead of economic stagnation, booming economic growth.” “Imagine innovation thriving on the Internet.” “Imagine America finally becoming energy self-sufficient.” “Imagine a federal government that protected the privacy rights of every American.”

Of course, if you know Mr. Cruz, or are familiar with how government is supposed to work, or with reality in general, you’ll find some of his imaginaries problematic, like abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, sealing the border, or “repealing every word of Obamacare.”