Real man o' the people

Canadian presidential candidate and half-melted wax Sam The Eagle replica Ted Cruz is in trouble this week after the New York Times revealed that his populist "I ran for Senate entirely on my own money" thing was bullcrap, as he actually took out a $500,000 loan from a big bank for his 2012 campaign. If you're saying "but candidate finances are boring, why does this matter?" -- oooh, let us show you why!

Mr. Cruz, a conservative former Texas solicitor general, was campaigning as a populist firebrand who criticized Wall Street bailouts and the influence of big banks in Washington. It is a theme he has carried into his bid for the Republican nomination for president.

See, Ted Cruz's entire brand is the populist who fights for the rights of working-class Republicans from America's heartland who don't think Donald Trump is quite Jesus-y enough. Cruz just haaaaaaaaaaaaates those big banks and the federal ObamaBankCare bailouts. This is the guy who only two months ago said he'd let banks fail rather than see the feds pull their asses out of the fire. Cruz also spoke in particular about the villainous, elitist Goldman Sachs:

Earlier this year, when asked about the political clout of Goldman Sachs in particular, he replied, “Like many other players on Wall Street and big business, they seek out and get special favors from government.”

You may notice we haven't yet commented as to which particular bank loaned Cruz $500,000 for his campaign. Can you guess which one it was? We bet you can! Why yes, it's Goldman Sachs, where his wife was managing director, which we're sure is just a huge coincidence.

So, this would be delicious enough if it were just "politician caught being a tremendous hypocrite," but it turns out the esteemed senator from the Great State of Alberta has another problem on his hands: he done made an oopsie and maybe broke the law. See, he didn't disclose these loans when his Senate election campaign filed with the Federal Election Commission. That's a no-no, because the law says you have to report campaign loans, and other campaigns have in the past been fined for not doing that.

So Cruz isn't going to jail for any of this (unfortunately), but it could give him a big old black eye and force him to fork over some of that sweet, luscious green. The loans themselves were totally legal; if Cruz had properly filed them, there'd be no issue. And we're sure his populist Tea Party base would've been totally cool with their hero taking a big old loan from the banks he promises to crush for them.

Cruz, for his part, denies any wrongdoing, which makes sense given his total lack of shame. He says the loans have been disclosed "over and over and over again," and if the FEC didn't have them, it must have been a "technical and inadvertent filing error" and that he'd correct the filings if needed. He also said "and that's the end of that," but stopped short of "these aren't the droids you're looking for."

Also, just in case you didn't already want to punch Ted Cruz in the face (who are we kidding, of course you did), you should know how VERY DIFFICULT his fiscal life is:

While the Cruzes were well paid — he made more than $1 million a year as a law partner, and she earned a six-figure income as an executive in Goldman Sachs’s Houston office — they also had big bills, including mortgage payments and full-time child care.

PLEASE WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE RICH, UNLIKABLE MOTHERFUCKERS.

We at Wonkette can only hope -- beg, really -- that whoever is moderating tonight's GOP debate on Fox Business Network will take a break from asking questions like "poor people: bad, or THE WORST?" to get Sen. Poutine's take on why he maybe broke the law and is a massive hypocritical bag of chipmunk shit also too. Just a thought.

[New York Times / Talking Points Memo]