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- By Corrie MacLaggan AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - As Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz hit the campaign trail before his victory on Tuesday in a Republican U.S. Senate primary runoff, he often told the story of his father fleeing Cuba and coming to Texas with...
By Corrie MacLaggan
AUSTIN, Texas | Thu Aug 2, 2012 6:59am IST
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - As Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz hit the campaign trail before his victory on Tuesday in a Republican U.S. Senate primary runoff, he often told the story of his father fleeing Cuba and coming to Texas with just $100 sewn into his underwear.
But the 41-year-old lawyer who became a national Republican star by beating the Texas Republican establishment pick, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, also talks about how every American family has a story like his father's.
Like Marco Rubio, the Cuban-American Republican senator from Florida, Cruz does not emphasize his ethnic background even though it is the elephant in the room, said Harvey Kronberg, editor of Texas political newsletter, the Quorum Report.
"He puts it more as an American success story than he does as any element, per se, of ethnic pride," Kronberg said of Cruz.
Cruz, a former state solicitor general who has never held elected office, would become the first Hispanic U.S. senator from Republican-dominated Texas if as expected he defeats Democrat Paul Sadler in the November 6 general election.
"He just has an enormous future," said Matt Mackowiak, an Austin-based Republican consultant. "Truly limitless at this point."
On the campaign trail, Cruz spoke of reducing the size of government, repealing President Barack Obama's healthcare law and working to "defend liberty" and "restore the Constitution."
He campaigned with the backing of national conservative figures such as former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and national groups such as the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks that funneled money and volunteers to his campaign.
Dewhurst, who had the support of key Republicans like Texas Governor and former Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, had dismissed Cruz as not having enough experience and running a campaign that depended on "Washington insiders."
CULTURE WARRIOR
As solicitor general, Cruz helped fight the nation's culture wars as Texas' chief lawyer before federal courts including the U.S. Supreme Court. He worked to successfully defend the constitutionality of a monument to the Ten Commandments on the Texas State Capitol grounds, and the words "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Cruz became the second young Hispanic Texan to be propelled into the national political spotlight this week. San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, 37, a Democrat, was selected to be the keynote speaker at his party's national convention in September.
Cruz speaks of how his father, Rafael, was beaten in a Cuban jail, fled that country in 1957, became a dishwasher in Texas and put himself through the University of Texas. Cruz has said his father was fighting against dictator Fulgencio Batista, on the same side as revolutionary Fidel Castro, but that he later renounced Castro.
"When I was a kid, over and over again my dad used to say, â