Election Diary, Part Three

It Makes Him Sick, Andrew Garfield on the cover of the August 18, 1880 issue of Puck Magazine. (Puck/University of Michigan).

By Rick Moody

Some further excerpts of my observations toward the end of the primary season, and into the general election. See Part One, Part Two.

April 26, 2016

The story that I am avidly following today is the story in which Ted Cruz’s father, as a young man, seems to be in a photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald. The conspiracy theory suggests that Cruz senior (who also apparently volunteered his services to Castro when he was up on the mountains fighting against Batista) was somehow so deeply involved in the fate of his native Cuba that he somehow encouraged Oswald, or was otherwise part of a conspiracy to assassinate JFK. This is so many levels of crazy that there’s nothing to say about it but that it is truly admirable as conspiracies go. The story suggests the relationship between hard right politics and the publication of gossip (the Enquirer has been very evidently pro-Trump throughout most of the election season so far, and accordingly, has published a number of hatchet pieces about Cruz). But at the same time, if you had to come up with a conspiracy, the conspiracy in which Ted Cruz’s father is part of the conspiracy to assassinate JFK is so pyrotechnical it’s like listening to an Yngwie Malmsteen. You have to love the chutzpah, and you have to laugh.

What else might have Ted Cruz’s dad done? I think Ted Cruz’s dad buried Jimmy Hoffa in the Everglades. I think Ted Cruz’s dad invented Wite-Out I think Ted Cruz’s dad played in Desi Arnaz’s band, and had a brief flirtation with Lucy. I think maybe Ted Cruz’s dad is the father of Desi Arnaz, Jr. I think Ted Cruz’s dad is actually one of the percussionists in Santana, and that young Ted became a conservative, because he didn’t like all the drug use in his dad’s band. I think Ted’s dad had sex with Tammy Faye Baker, and that was after he had sex with Jim Baker. I think Ted Cruz’s dad was on Laugh In, wearing a pith helmet. I think that Ted Cruz’s dad was a stooge of Ronald Reagan on the Berkeley Campus in the late sixties, undercover, and that he was particularly concerned about consciousness-raising in the Latino community. I think that Ted Cruz’s dad was the first guy ever to do a Jell-O shot, and that he did them in front of young Ted. I think Ted Cruz’s dad really really really liked Lynyrd Skynyrd, despite the fact that it...