I really don’t want to vote for Hillary Clinton either. But I’d much rather she be President in 2017 than anyone in a party whose candidates will include Scott Walker, Jeb Bush (because apparently the last Bush wasn’t bad enough), Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz.
There’s nothing about the GOP in general that makes me want to see a Republican in the White House. The last Republican president was a disaster, the GOP has spent the last six years and counting doing everything it could to set back progress just to spite Obama, and I loathe the current GOP Congress with a passion. And in spite of that, things are still better now than they were by the end of the W. years, no thanks to the GOP.
As for Ted Cruz, he bills himself as a “courageous conservative”. He rose to national prominence in 2013 as the most outspoken (read: obnoxious) voice in the Senate supporting the House Republicans’ shutdown of the government. He’s a climate change denier who opposes abortion rights and gay marriage. His approach to geopolitics is more sabre-ratting in place of diplomacy (particularly where Iran is concerned), and he wants to drive the nation closer to the current warmonger in Israel. His platform is built on pandering to the hardcore conservative base, primarily evangelicals. So, yeah, definitely a typical Southern Republican.
That said, I don’t see Ted Cruz winning the GOP primary. One of the reasons Jeb Bush is the current frontrunner is because he’s a Republican moderate - insofar as the current Republican Party, which has gone far to the right, even has one. Same as John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 (and, again, being a “moderate” in the GOP doesn’t really say much). That makes him a much safer bet on the national stage, where votes from Independents and people otherwise undecided matter, for mainstream Republican donors and voters to bet on. And the field is so crowded that even amongst the extreme portions of the Party, Cruz will be competing with other candidates like Scott Walker. He’s got an uphill battle in front of him.
Oh, and after Cruz announced that he was running for President, someone did this:
http://www.tedcruz.com/