On the off chance that you live as a subterranean and have not heard, the South Carolina Republican primary is this coming Saturday, Feb. 20. Most of the Republican candidates have camped out in the Palmetto State this week, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who won the first caucus state of Iowa. Cruz decided to “bless” some supporters with his presence earlier today in Seneca for a “meet and greet” at the Seneca Family Restaurant. 

Yes, I was in fact in attendance. Does this mean I am voting for Cruz? No. I just wanted to go and see what this freshman senator was all about. 

He was supposed to arrive at noon, but as to be expected of most politicians when speaking at an event, he arrived fashionably late. About 48 minutes late to be exact. Though it probably wasn’t his fault (I think he had a press conference or something), this irritated me. Mostly because I am a pretty impatient person, and I also had a class that afternoon I needed to get to.  

One observation that stuck out most to me was the massive amount of people who attended. This is a Wednesday, a workday, in the middle of the day. Don’t you people have jobs? I could understand if this had been on a Saturday or something, but good lord people, go to work. The only reason I was there was to collect information for this no-good article. 

On second thought, I realize that election season is in full swing, and people are excited about the upcoming primary.  Apparently they’re excited about Ted Cruz as well. When this election started, I was strongly in favor of Cruz. 

However, as campaigns moved forward, debate stages narrowed and the public was able to get a glimpse of what the candidates were all about, some things happened that caused my support of Cruz to waiver. Namely, the whole scandal about Ben Carson dropping out, and telling the whole world seemed a

little snake-like.  

Now, I know that candidates are going to attack each other, and if you watched the debate Saturday in Greenville, you know that to be true. Cruz should have at least spoken to the Carson campaign before telling the world he was dropping out. It seems especially low because if a Carson voter hears his man is dropping out, they will obviously begin looking for other options. It’s different from a simple attack ad aimed at Carson. If the Cruz campaign had talked to Carson first, it would have been clear that he was not dropping out. 

Trump says a bunch of stuff, and he has always said that Cruz will say or do anything to win an election. The more I listen to Cruz talk, the more I agree. I cannot think of a single senator (Ted Cruz’s colleagues) who has endorsed him. Shouldn’t that raise an eyebrow? I would assume that at least one of these senators would support their comrade from Texas. 

As for the meet and greet, I honestly was not that impressed. 

Sure it was cool to see a presidential candidate in person, but he just stood up and said the same stuff he has been talking about since day one. It was just like listening to a rerun of one of the debates, or a Fox News interview, except it was Ted Cruz in the flesh. 

He got up there, talked for approximately 25 minutes, signed a bunch of cards, hats, one guitar, took a lot of pictures and then hopped on the Cruz-mobile and rode out into the sunset. 

Well, not exactly, it was around 2 p.m.