Culture

A Republican Presidential Candidate’s Former Roommate Is Constantly Calling Him A Jerk On Twitter

Moral of the story? Be nice to your roomies, or they'll mess with you later.

by Alex McKinnon  19 January 2016

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If anyone’s going to beat Donald Trump in the race to become the Republican Party’s Presidential nominee this year, it’s probably going to be Texas Senator Ted Cruz. A self-styled political outsider, extreme social conservative, climate change denier and gun nut, Cruz is arguably the most prominent leftover from the short-lived Tea Party movement that sent several dozen conservative, anti-establishment Republicans to Congress a few years ago. He’s begun to nip at Trump’s heels in polls as the first primary contests get closer, and if he emerges as a reasonable (I use the term loosely) alternative to Trump who could actually win, he might start receiving support from the Republican Party that has until now been withheld.

Cruz’ confrontational, relentlessly negative style has gathered him a lot of attention over his political career; in 2014 he accused President Barack Obama of being “openly desirous to destroy the Constitution and this Republic,” which is over-the-top even by Republican standards. It also means just about everybody who doesn’t love him thinks he’s a complete asshole; Cruz’ unlikeability is so widely acknowledged, he even addressed it in a Republican candidates debate a few months ago. From Congress to his fellow Republicans to George W Bush, the amount of overt dislike towards Cruz (in a profession where almost everybody is some variety of jerk) is legendary. As Trump himself put it pretty bluntly in an interview with FOX News yesterday, “everybody hates Ted Cruz”.

A lot of that can probably be explained away by politics; Trump’s running against Cruz, after all, and George W Bush made his remarks while talking up the Presidential prospects of his hapless younger brother Gob.

But someone from a very different part of Cruz’ life is going to a great deal of effort to expose the candidate’s apparent dickishness. Cruz was a college student at Princeton in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and for a few years now his former roommate, screenwriter Craig Mazin, has been sharing his experiences of rooming with Cruz back in the day. They are not very complimentary.

Presidential candidates and their pasts endure pretty rigorous scrutiny, as journalists and rivals hunt for juicy tidbits that might damage their prospects, and Mazin has been more than happy to provide. In 2013 he did an extensive interview with the Daily Beast, recounting how Cruz used to hang around outside the female dormitory in a paisley bathrobe and constantly provoke political arguments with other students.

Now that Cruz is looking more and more likely as a Presidential candidate, Mazin has stepped up his game, recalling more details of his time at college over the last few days.

Mazin’s renewed efforts have attracted a lot of attention, which in turn has spurred him to impart further tales of Cruz’ awfulness. It’s become a bit of a thing.

As for the prospect of his former roomie becoming President? In that Daily Beast interview, Mazin is quoted as saying: “I would rather have anybody else be the president of the United States. Anyone. I would rather pick somebody from the phone book.”

Yeesh.

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Feature image via Facebook/Ted Cruz for President 2016.