So

(Thank you, Peter Gabriel.)

Rafael Edward (Ted) Cruz, a Republican Senator from Texas, has thrown his hat (no, not a sombrero) into the 2016 Presidential running, according to the Washington Post (by way of Shakesville).

(Yes, a cheap shot.  Trust me, there'll be worse, OK?)

So everyone is taking this seriously because mustn't upset the tea party someone has to start the horses.

Buried in the penultimate graf of the story is an innocent-looking sentence:

While he was born in Canada, two lawyers who represented presidents from both parties at the Supreme Court recently wrote in the Harvard Law Review that they think Cruz meets the constitutional standard to run.

This is actually somewhat important because Article II, Section 1, of the United States Constitution states

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

And Senator Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta. That's in Canada. That large English/French-speaking country to the north? That's not and has never been part of the United States of America?  War of 1812?  Canada.  This "natural born" stuff has been stretched to cover overseas embassies, bases, protectorates, and territories, but not, so far, neighboring countries.

Of course, the Republicans could start now on annexation proceedings amending the Constitution to eliminate that requirement.  (I'm mildly surprised [not!] that doing that wasn't considered when Arnold Schwarzenegger was a rising Republican star.)  Although then they'd have to admit to lying about President Obama's birthplace.  Because they'd have to admit that being foreign-born was OK for Republicans (also that they can't find Hawai'i on a map, since they think it's in Africa somewhere).

Also, I don't think "He's the right kind of Hispanic" is going to sit all that well with non-Cuban Hispanics, some of whom have escaped from regimes as awful as Castro's.

ETA:  Southern Beale also noticed and has a suggestion.  Also, the full auditorium at Mr. Cruz's announcement at Liberty University was because attendance is mandatory.