Ted Cruz Honed Political Skills in Princeton Debate Club
In debates, Mr. Cruz, who declined to comment for this article, almost always took the lead government or opposition positions, and he often chopped the air as he called on what Mr. Panton described as a photographic memory. Without notes, he employed his trademark strategy.
“Ted was not about responding to anything,” Mr. Panton said. “He would reframe the whole debate.”
.. “Nobody was better at setting traps,” said Austan D. Goolsbee, a Yale debater who became a leading economist for President Obama. He recalled Mr. Cruz’s attempts to control debates with carefully constructed arguments that always seemed to anticipate his opponents’ rebuttals.
But Mr. Goolsbee and other top debaters on the circuit who frequently beat Mr. Cruz discovered it was easy to get under his skin, especially with humor. “It would unravel him,” Mr. Goolsbee said.