Don’t even get any of that birther stink on you

Ted Cruz’s mother was a U.S. citizen when he was born in Calgary. This makes him a “natural born citizen” and eligible to become president of the United States. For this same reason, Barack Obama would be eligible to be president even if he were born abroad — he wasn’t.

“The weight of scholarly legal and historical opinion appears to support the notion that ‘natural born Citizen’ means one who is entitled under the Constitution or laws of the United States to U.S. citizenship ‘at birth’ or ‘by birth,’ including any child born ‘in’ the United States, the children of United States citizens born abroad, and those born abroad of one citizen parents who has met U.S. residency requirements,” according to the Congressional Research Service’s Jack Maskell.

So that settled, you should not question whether Ted Cruz is able to run for president for two reasons.

First, birtherism is just cowardly racism. If election officials determine someone is qualified, fine. Few questioned John McCain’s eligibility though he was born in Panama for one reason: skin tone. So playing tit-for-tat just justifies what was an entirely despicable, racist assault on Barack Obama (and continues on several non-white candidates including Cruz, Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal).

Secondly, you should encourage Ted Cruz to run.

Let the junior senator from Texas explain why:

‘If Republicans do not do better in the Hispanic community,’ he said, ‘in a few short years Republicans will no longer be the majority party in our state.’ He ticked off some statistics: in 2004, George W. Bush won forty-four per cent of the Hispanic vote nationally; in 2008, John McCain won just thirty-one per cent. On Tuesday, Romney fared even worse.’In not too many years, Texas could switch from being all Republican to all Democrat,’ he said. ‘If that happens, no Republican will ever again win the White House. New York and California are for the foreseeable future unalterably Democrat. If Texas turns bright blue, the Electoral College math is simple. We won’t be talking about Ohio, we won’t be talking about Florida or Virginia, because it won’t matter. If Texas is bright blue, you can’t get to two-seventy electoral votes. The Republican Party would cease to exist. We would become like the Whig Party. Our kids and grandkids would study how this used to be a national political party. They had Conventions, they nominated Presidential candidates. They don’t exist anymore.’

Cruz feels that he can do better with Latinos than the rest of the GOP because he has a Cuban father and an Ivy Leaguer’s belief in his own abilities that’s backed up by almost no evidence. He did slightly better with Latinos than Romney at 35% but worse than Texas’ senior senator John Cornyn did in 2008.

Republicans like to believe Latinos are natural Republicans because they’re generally Catholics. But, as Rush Limbaugh likes to point out, Latinos are extremely opposed to the policies of the GOP and not just when it comes to immigration. Latinos are more pro-choice than the rest of the population, they embrace ObamaCare and believe in an activist government that improves the lives of workers.

Cruz is against a path to citizenship, wants to repeal ObamaCare and opposes abortion, unless the mother’s life is danger. He wants to remove regulation, weaken or eliminate the safety net and cut taxes on the richest who have done the best since the financial crisis. And he’s arrogant and prone to conspiracy theories, if they serve his corporate agenda.

And the fact that he thinks he can appeal to Latinos despite supporting policies they despise will possibly help him do worse with the fastest growing group of new voters than even Mitt Romney.

Basically, he has no chance of winning and will only push the GOP further to the right and closer to its grave. So, run, Ted. Run.