March 23, 2015 08:47 AM UTC

Ted Cruz First To Enter 2016 Presidential Race

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

AP via the Denver Post:

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has become the first major candidate for president, kicking off what’s expected to be a rush over the next few weeks of more than a dozen White House hopefuls into the 2016 campaign.

“I am running for president and I hope to earn your support,” the tea party favorite said in a Twitter message posted just after midnight on Monday.

Cruz will formally launch his bid during a morning speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, choosing to begin his campaign at the Christian college founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell rather than his home state of Texas or the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. It’s a fitting setting for Cruz, a 44-year-old tea party darling whose entry into the 2016 campaign drew cheers Sunday among fellow conservatives.

“Tea Party darling” Sen. Ted Cruz has proved a major thorn in the side of most of his fellow Republicans, ready to scuttle delicately-balanced negotiations over important matters at any time in order to score relatively meaningless political points against President Barack Obama. “Tea Party” factions in both the House and Senate look to Cruz for leadership, sometimes to the profound chagrin of House Speaker John Boehner–as we saw perhaps most damagingly in last year’s standoff over Obama’s immigration executive orders.

Obviously, what Ted Cruz needs to be successful with his grand vision of…well, whatever his grand vision is, he needs to be President to do it. It’s tough to imagine Cruz actually winning the GOP nomination, kind of like it was hard to imagine Rick Santorum as President. But he’s certainly allowed to try.

In the 2012 cycle, fellow Texan Gov. Rick Perry, a candidate we’d consider on the same general tier intellectually and politically as Ted Cruz, earned the backing of Rep. Mike Coffman. Coffman in fact served as the state chairman of Perry’s campaign until Perry imploded in a series of campaign trail and debate gaffes.

Well folks, here’s another chance for Coffman to be “a proud member of the Party of No.”