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WASHINGTON -- Fourteen years ago, Ted Cruz wasn't a household name -- but the editors of Newsweek predicted he would be. In a July 1999 cover story on the rise of Latino culture, the magazine highlighted Cruz as one of 20 "Latinos to watch."
Sandwiched among a list heavy with entertainers and athletes, the then-29-year-old Cruz was listed as a D.C. lawyer most known for being the "first Latino to clerk for the chief justice of the United States, in 1996-97." In the short blurb, Cruz was not presented as a future tea party darling or even a senator-in-waiting. Instead, he was presented as an advocate for educational opportunity.
"Education opened the American dream to [my father]," he told Newsweek. "We're failing to provide that education now, especially to poor minorities."
From the pages of Newsweek, Cruz would go on to work on the 2000 Bush presidential campaign, become a member of the Bush administration, assume the post of Texas' Solicitor General, and ultimately be elected to the U.S. Senate. In the process, he outlasted the magazine that featured him -- Newsweek has ended its print publication and been sold twice.
The scan of the Newsweek story and cover was provided by Lyndsey D. Myers with the University of Texas Libraries. (Click here for a larger version.)
