# Ted Cruz' Academic Snobbishness v. the Fox News Demographic **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 23, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521 "2013-09-23T16:24:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/1 "2013-09-23T16:24:33Z")
[This should be fun](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/in-law-school-ted-cruz-only-studied-with-students-from-harvard-princeton-or-yale): > [@](#): > > The elite academic circles that Cruz was now traveling in began to rub off. As a law student at Harvard, he refused to study with anyone who hadn’t been an undergrad at Harvard, Princeton, or Yale. Says Damon Watson, one of Cruz’s law-school roommates: “He said he didn’t want anybody from ‘minor Ivies’ like Penn or Brown.” Here’s what’s going to get Cruz in trouble with his fan base. It’s not the fact that he went to Princeton, and then on to Harvard Law. It’s that he’s looking down on people who went to lesser schools. Whether or not it’s based on truth, much of America - primarily conservative America - feels that the pointy-headed academic elites look down their noses at everyone else. If you got your degree from, say, East Tennessee State University, or if you didn’t get a college degree at all, most conservatives feel that this makes you a second-class citizen in the eyes of the libruls of the Ivy League. Most Teabaggers, most Fox News watchers, most of Rush Limbaugh’s audience, is OK with voting for conservative politicians who got degrees from elite institutions. But they’ve got to at least pretend that not much of the experience, and especially not the elitism part, rubbed off on them. But here Cruz is caught looking down his nose at people who went to college not just at the ETSUs of the world, but at everyone except those who went to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. That’s gonna rankle with the people in the GOP grass roots whose support he needs to go anywhere. And considering his penchant for picking up enemies among his Congressional colleagues, I think Cruz can kiss his 2016 hopes goodbye. But it will be fun watching him go down in flames. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/2 "2013-09-23T16:47:26Z")
I doubt very much that this content will get any serious airtime in right-wing circles. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/3 "2013-09-23T16:49:03Z")
The trouble is Ted Cruz’ people don’t read sources where that kind of thing is reported. Ugh. He and Rick Perry make me embarrassed to be a Texan. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/4 "2013-09-23T16:56:30Z")
Given the number of Republicans who’d like to stick a metaphorical shiv in Cruz’ back, I’m thinking that the chances that this story will get some serious circulation in GOP-land are pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/5 "2013-09-23T16:57:02Z")
Are you joking? if they even hear about it they will dismiss it as the liberal media doing a hit job on Cruz because Obama is scared of him. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/6 "2013-09-23T17:07:59Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > The trouble is Ted Cruz’ people don’t read sources where that kind of thing is reported. Ugh. He and Rick Perry make me embarrassed to be a Texan. I’m proud to be a Texan but embarassed that both of them are too. For a smart guy Cruz sure says a lot of really dumb sh!t. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/7 "2013-09-23T17:10:47Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > I’m proud to be a Texan but embarassed that both of them are too. For a smart guy Cruz sure says a lot of really dumb sh!t. He says dumb shit the way Sarah Palin says dumb shit, because they know it sells. Not the way Bachmann says dumb shit, because her brain is broken. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/8 "2013-09-23T18:01:16Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > Are you joking? if they even hear about it they will dismiss it as the liberal media doing a hit job on Cruz because Obama is scared of him. Depends on who they hear it from. If they hear it from a Tea Party congressman, I doubt it. And a bunch of them are getting fed up with Cruz. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/9 "2013-09-23T18:04:18Z")
Yes because radical conservatives in America would never vote for anyone who secretly holds them in contempt. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/10 "2013-09-23T18:25:51Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I doubt very much that this content will get any serious airtime in right-wing circles. Or any circles. And who the hell is Damon Watson? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/11 "2013-09-23T18:37:38Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Or any circles. And who the hell is Damon Watson? His roommate, evidently. The quote is getting a fair bit of play in the political media. I saw the quote in four or five different places already. I just don’t think it will get much penetration into cable news or radio, in part because it’s a text quote from a GQ article, and in part because there’s no handy narrative for the Limbaugh’s and Hannity’s of the world to fit it into. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/12 "2013-09-23T21:43:48Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > His roommate, evidently. The quote is getting a fair bit of play in the political media. I saw the quote in four or five different places already. I just don’t think it will get much penetration into cable news or radio, in part because it’s a text quote from a GQ article, and in part because there’s no handy narrative for the Limbaugh’s and Hannity’s of the world to fit it into. GQ? Isn’t that a homo publication? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/13 "2013-09-23T22:30:32Z")
I’ve given myself 30 lashes for the atrocious apostrophes in that post. I don’t know what happened there. Ted Cruz would obviously not study with me. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/14 "2013-09-23T22:52:22Z")
Is anyone claiming that Ted Cruz is ineligible? He was born in Canada, but his mother was an American. Given the nonsense about Obama’s birth, I wonder if Cruz will face similar challenges. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/15 "2013-09-23T22:55:33Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Is anyone claiming that Ted Cruz is ineligible? He was born in Canada, but his mother was an American. Given the nonsense about Obama’s birth, I wonder if Cruz will face similar challenges. The New York Times should demand to see his birth certificate. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/16 "2013-09-23T22:57:03Z")
I know you’re kidding but the Dallas Morning News [published it](http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20130818-born-in-canada-ted-cruz-became-a-citizen-of-that-country-as-well-as-u.s..ece). The jist of the article is that he’s a Canadian citizen as well as an American one. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/17 "2013-09-23T23:18:49Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Is anyone claiming that Ted Cruz is ineligible? He was born in Canada, but his mother was an American. Given the nonsense about Obama’s birth, I wonder if Cruz will face similar challenges. Oh, certainly. There are now people claiming that for _all_ possible presidents. One of the arguments for why Obama is ineligible even though he was born in Hawaii would apply equally to Cruz. There are also people who believe Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney are ineligible, as they each had a foreign (in the birthers’ eyes) parent. They were genuine fringe and didn’t get any airtime in 2012, but they existed. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/18 "2013-09-24T00:21:49Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly’s link] As a law student at Harvard, he refused to study with anyone who hadn’t been an undergrad at Harvard, Princeton, or Yale. Says Damon Watson, one of Cruz’s law-school roommates: “He said he didn’t want anybody from ‘minor Ivies’ like Penn or Brown.” [/QUOTE] Demonstrating that there’s a Simpsons quote for every occasion: Skinner: Lisa, the president of Harvard would like to see you. Pres.: Nasty business, that zero. Naturally, Harvard’s doors are now closed to you, but I’ll pass your file along to … Brown. Skinner: Mmmm, Brown. Heckuva school. Weren’t you at Brown, Otto? Otto: Yup. Almost got tenure, too. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/19 "2013-09-24T03:41:15Z")
Cruz’s snobbery is pretty ridiculous. Sure, the Ivies are very selective, but there’s a limit to the correlation between a student’s high school performance (which gets him into Harvard) and his usefulness as a study partner in law school. Good study partners are smart and hard-working, like good high school students, but they also have to complement your own strengths and weaknesses, which Harvard doesn’t select for, unless you’re an idiot and are trying to make up for everything. OK, maybe Cruz had a point. I also suspect, but cannot prove, that the actual quality of undergraduate education doesn’t correlate at all with the reputation of the school, which is based mostly on the quality of research by the faculty; most undergrads aren’t going to get within shouting distance of the Nobel Prize winners. That could be a factor too, though probably the quality of undergraduate education doesn’t correlate strongly with good study partners either. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521/20 "2013-09-24T04:13:47Z")
For a guy who is suppose to be smart, that seems like a pretty dumb thing to do. Even if he thought he was applying the right criteria, being open about it just creates needless hostility. Also, most CEOs aren’t from the Ivies: they are from state schools. Here’s a table from the report \*Leading CEOs: A Statistical Snapshot of S&P 500 Leaders \*: ```auto Most Common Undergraduate Universities (by S&P 500 category) S&P 500 Group Most Common University 1-100 Harvard, Stanford, Yale, U. of North Carolina - 3% each 101-200 Harvard, Stanford – 4% each 201-300 Rutgers – 4% 301-400 U. of Wisconsin – 4% 401-500 U. of Wisconsin – 4% ``` Not the best dataset, but I’ll note that Princeton is nowhere in the list. Here’s an analysis that pools graduate and undergraduate degrees for Fortune 500 CEOs. Yes, Harvard leads the list. No, Princeton is not on the top 10: ```auto Institution Total degrees Undergraduate degrees M.B.A.'s Other graduate degrees U.S. News undergraduate rank U.S. News business school rank Harvard University 65 11 40 14 1 1 Stanford University 27 11 10 6 5 1 University of Pennsylvania 24 7 13 4 5 3 Columbia University 18 3 4 11 4 8 University of Michigan—Ann Arbor 14 6 5 3 28 13 University of Notre Dame 14 10 1 3 19 25 University of Virginia 14 4 4 6 25 13 Cornell University 13 8 3 2 15 16 Dartmouth College 12 9 3 0 11 9 Indiana University—Bloomington 11 5 6 0 75 23 Northwestern University 11 2 6 3 12 4 Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey—New Brunswick 11 5 3 3 68 63 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 10 3 0 7 5 4 ``` Don’t worry about the numbers: just note that neither Princeton nor Yale are in the top 13 and only 5 of 13 are Ivy League anyway. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-academic-snobbishness-v-the-fox-news-demographic/669521.md?page=2)