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His secret, he told New Yorker reporter Jeffrey Toobin, is he believes the "essential battle is the meta-battle of framing the narrative." He started this practice as at Princeton—his college best friend David Panton recalled to the New York Times, "Ted was not about responding to anything. He would reframe the whole debate"—and by the time he was arguing cases in front of the Supreme Court as Texas's Solicitor General, he'd perfected it. He told Toobin that when arguing before the Justices, he concentrated on articulating "those two sentences that come out of the judge's mouth" when "the judge goes home and speaks to his or her grandchild, who's in kindergarten, and the child says, 'Paw-Paw, what did you do today?'"Cruz's rhetorical acumen was on full display at last night's Republican debate, in which the 44-year-old Senator from Texas reiterated his desire to wipe out the IRS, let ailing banks die on the vine rather than bailing them out, and return to the gold standard. He used the term "philosopher-king" twice and referenced something called "The Dead Horse Act" once. Just because he seems like a candidate out of the 19th century doesn't mean he should be underestimated—the guy's got an uncanny ability to make insane stuff seem reasonable.Related: What Would Actually Happen if Ted Cruz Abolished the IRS?
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