“Lyin’ Ted” feels almost tame.
Donald Trump is usually the most insulting person in any room, but his nickname for Ted Cruz is nowhere near the worst thing the senator’s been called. The creativity with which people have expressed their hatred for him stands out even in this particularly nasty campaign season. Below are a few of the most inventive ways those who know Mr. Cruz have characterized him, or their feelings about his candidacy.
“Lucifer in the flesh”
This is how John Boehner described Mr. Cruz in an appearance at Stanford on Wednesday. He added, “I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”
Like being “poisoned”
On “The Daily Show” in March, Lindsey Graham said choosing between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz was like deciding whether to be “shot or poisoned.” By way of clarification, he added, “Donald is like being shot in the head. You might find an antidote to poisoning, I don’t know, but maybe there’s time.”
“The lovechild of Joe McCarthy and Dracula”
It’s less surprising when Democrats insult Mr. Cruz than when Republicans do it, but Al Franken still gets points for originality. He offered this description at a MinnPost event earlier this month.
“Creepy”
“Several fellow classmates who asked that their names not be used described the young Cruz with words like ‘abrasive,’ ‘intense,’ ‘strident,’ ‘crank,’ and ‘arrogant,’” wrote Patricia Murphy at The Daily Beast in 2013. “Four independently offered the word ‘creepy,’ with some pointing to Cruz’s habit of donning a paisley bathrobe and walking to the opposite end of their dorm’s hallway where the female students lived.”
“A nightmare of a human being”
Craig Mazin, Mr. Cruz’s freshman roommate at Princeton, has many thoughts about the senator, none of them good. In addition to calling him a “nightmare,” he has said, “I have plenty of problems with his politics, but truthfully, his personality is so awful that 99 percent of why I hate him is just his personality. If he agreed with me on every issue, I would hate him only 1 percent less.”
“I hate Ted Cruz, and I think I’ll take cyanide if he ever got the nomination.”
This needs little explanation. Representative Peter King made his feelings clear on “Morning Joe” earlier this month.