The race installed Mr. Cruz as a creature of the Republican establishment — but also helped initiate his divorce from it. He made plenty of enemies among party operatives, according to interviews with over a dozen former colleagues, though for reasons that had little to do with ideology.
“I was far too cocky for my own good,” Mr. Cruz wrote in his book, “A Time for Truth,” explaining how the burned bridges probably cost him a desired job in Mr. Bush’s White House, “and that sometimes caused me to overstep the bounds of my appointed role.”
.. In fact, former colleagues say, the Ted Cruz of 2000 is entirely recognizable in the candidate now aspiring to the presidency himself, fusing hyper-intelligence, crackling ambition and a laundry list of impeccable insider credentials that he once ticked off more readily.
“He thought he should get the No. 1 policy job in the White House, and he was extremely ambitious,” said Ari Fleischer, Mr. Bush’s former spokesman. “In Ted’s case in 2000, it backfired.”
Mr. Cruz had landed on the Bush campaign by way of Princeton, Harvard,a Supreme Court clerkship and a stint at a Washington law firm. If anyone was unaware of his résumé, Mr. Cruz was vigilant about correcting that.