http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/03/23/cruz-asks-america-to-imagine-in-presidential-campaign-announcement-speech/by MATTHEW BOYLE23 Mar 2015Lynchburg, Virginia
LYNCHBURG, Virginia — More than 10,000 people here at Liberty University’s convocation on Monday morning went wild as conservative Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced his presidential campaign, asking Americans to “imagine a president” who stands up for the values they believe in.
He started off the speech by calling talking about his personal and familial roots, where he came from and how he became what he is—explaining he believes that is the “promise of America.”
He started with his mom:
Imagine your parents when they were children, imagine a little girl, growing up in Wilmington, Delaware, during World War Two, the daughter of Irish and Italian Catholic family, working class, her uncle ran numbers in Wilmington, she grew up with dozen of cousins because her mom was the second youngest of 17 kids, she had a difficult father, a man who drank far too much, and frankly didn’t think that women should be educated, and yet this young girl, pretty and shy, was driven, was bright, was inquisitive, and she became the first person in her family ever to go to college. In 1956, my mom, Eleanor, graduated from Rice University with a degree in math, and became a pioneering computer programmer in the 1950s and 1960s.”
After that, he shifted to his dad:
Imagine a teenage boy. Not much younger than many of you here today. Growing up in Cuba. Jet black hair, skinny as a rail. Involved in student council and yet Cuba was not at a peaceful time. The dictator, Batista, was corrupt.
He was oppressive. And this teenage boy joins a revolution. He joins a revolution against Batista. He begins fighting, with other teenagers, to free Cuba from the dictator. This boy at age 17 finds himself thrown in prison, finds himself tortured, beaten, and then at age 18, he flees Cuba.
He comes to America. Imagine for a second the hope that was in his heart as he rode that ferry boat across to Key West and got on a greyhound bus to head to Austin, Texas to begin working washing dishes, making 50 cents an hour. Coming to the one land on earth that has welcomed so many millions. When my dad came to America, in 1957, he could not have imagined what lay in store for him.”
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