I try not to talk about the national stuff only because everybody else is.
That being said, I do not understand why so many people are cutting U.S. Senator Ted Cruz's presidential ambitions short.
For Cruz, it is a "now or never" moment. He either runs for president now or never.
Why never?
2016 is an open-seat race. That does not happen very often, and Republicans have a good shot. If a Republican wins, Cruz has to postpone White House dreams by, more than likely, 8 years.
To wait another 8 years in Senate casting all those votes opens you to all shorts of questions later down the road.
It is not just the votes over the eight years that will hurt you.
They call it "flavor of the month", not "flavor of the last decade" for a reason.
Cruz is the flavor of the month. He knows he cannot sustain that for eight years because just as the sunrises, there too will be another conservative star that will rise and outshine him.
Oh, and in the event he loses, he still keeps his Senate seat.
Those are just the practical reasons.
Then there is the fact a relatively unknown, at least to most of the public, Texas Solicitor General defeated a well-financed Lt. Governor for a U.S. Senate seat.
So we shouldn't be surprised that he is running.
We should be surprised if he hadn't.