“JFK campaigned on tax cuts, limiting government and standing up and defeating Soviet communists,” Ted Cruz said. | AP Photo Cruz claims JFK's mantle

MILFORD, N.H.— Ted Cruz on Sunday swapped his tinge of Texas twang for an attempt at an upper-crust Boston accent as he asserted here in New England that former President John F. Kennedy would be a Republican today.

“JFK campaigned on tax cuts, limiting government and standing up and defeating Soviet communists,” he said in a packed room at a restaurant here, his first stop on a swing through New Hampshire. “JFK would be a Republican today. He stood for religious liberty, and he would be tarred and feathered by the modern Democratic Party.”


He delivered those remarks in a town near the Massachusetts border, a state where the Kennedys have deep roots and are lionized as liberal heroes.

“As JFK said,” Cruz continued, dropping his “r’s” as he aimed to assume a New England accent, “’Some men see things as they are and ask, Why? I see things that never were and ask, why not?’ These are the principles that work.”

While Kennedy did offer a version of that quote, it is more closely associated with his brother, Robert Kennedy, who borrowed it from George Bernard Shaw. Edward Kennedy also referenced it at Robert Kennedy's funeral.