Veteran political analyst Dick Morris tells
Newsmax TV that the decision by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to release a television ad in Spanish following his announcement to enter the presidential race in 2016 was "a brilliant strategic move."
While Morris told J.D. Hayworth and Miranda Khan that while he doesn't necessarily like political ads in Spanish because it "promotes multiculturalism and bilingualism" because "everybody should learn English," he said that "it's a brilliant strategic move because it reminds people that he's a Latino candidate."
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"You have [Florida Sen.] Marco Rubio, who's sitting up there with 12 percent of the vote nationally and Cruz is at 4 and everybody says, 'Oh, Rubio's Latino,'" he explained.
"Cruz has himself become so assimilated that nobody thinks of him as Latino and by putting the ad out in Spanish, he emphasizes that point, and that's a crucial point because Republicans want to nominate a Latino because they want to prove they're not racist," he said.
"They understand that's the swing vote, they understand that's the growing vote, and what Cruz essentially is doing is saying, 'Hey, I'm Latino, too!'"
Morris contends that Cruz stands out because he has come to personify the opposition to Obamacare.
"The key thing about Cruz is that of all the candidates running for president, he's the only one in a sense with a job — because as senator he's the key person on Obamacare," he explained.
"Rubio has no comparable role, [Kentucky Sen. Rand] Paul has no comparable role, and none of the others are in Congress," he said.
"He has a job, and that job is to be in charge of the conservative view on Obamacare, and when that [Supreme Court decision in King v. Burwell] . . . comes down and kicks it back to Congress and says it's illegal as it is now, Cruz will be the key actor and you have to see his presidential candidacy in the light of that event," he added.
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