Harvard Law outsider became Tea Party hero
His near-perfect score on the LSAT helped him fulfill a dream of going to Harvard Law School.
.. Melissa Hart agreed to give Cruz a ride from New York, where Cruz was at the end of the summer, back to Cambridge. She didn’t know him well, but he sought her out after she had been given a prestigious award for first-year students.
“We hadn’t left Manhattan before he asked my IQ,” Hart said. “When I told him I didn’t know, he asked, ‘Well, what’s your SAT score? That’s closely coordinated with your IQ.’ ”
.. A former roommate told the magazine GQ recently that Cruz preferred to study only with graduates of Harvard, Princeton, or Yale, dismissing the rest as “the minor Ivies.”
.. If the game was hearts, his signature move was to “shoot the moon,” the game’s riskiest, showiest, and most aggressive maneuver.
“It’s hard to execute,” said Charles Morse, a law school friend. “Ted was fond of that.”
If the game was poker, he put all his chips on the table.
“He would go all in sometimes . . . and you’d never know if he’s bluffing,” said Alexander Acosta, another friend. “He’s someone who’s willing to take risks.”
.. Cruz’s beliefs are no different now, and when it came to taxation classmates recall him arguing that the government was stealing money from the rich and giving it to the poor.
.. Ted Cruz was, and in many ways still is, an actor.
In high school, he says, he considered dropping out and moving to California to pursue an acting career. His parents talked him out of it.
.. Cruz was so driven to secure a clerkship that he resolved to learn tennis, since Rehnquist, an avid player, was known to organize weekly matches with his clerks.