The Ted Cruz Magical Mystery Tour - Day 22

Roll up for the Ted Cruz Magical Mystery Tour!

Step Right This Way!

So here is what I have been doing with the Twitter feed from the Ted Cruz campaign:

Everyday I check the feed, and on one of those old fashioned legal pads with paper and pen I write down a quick note about where Mr. Cruz is, how far he's traveled, and any other significant events that happen that day.  The miles are courtesy of the map app on my Kindle Fire, so they are road miles, but later I do measure distances in Google to see how many crow miles are involved in case Mr. Cruz chooses to fly, which he often does.  

For example, today's entry is:

Day 22 - 4/13/15 - Marco Rubio enters the race.  Ted Cruz speaks at 12 at the John Locke Foundation Luncheon at the North Raleigh Hilton, Raleigh NC.  San Antonio to Raleigh is 1395 miles.  

And that's it.  

But, I take it one step further now, yeah?  

I take all that information from the web that I have transferred onto paper and then, when the moment suits me, I put all of that information into a spreadsheet.  I use a bit of judgement to discern if Ted flew or took a bus, and decide if the road miles or plane miles should be tallied.  

Oh yeah.  I'm in it for the long haul.  

So what has Mr. Cruz been up to?  Well, after announcing he was running for president and spending a few days in New York doing the whole media thing he decided not to vote for a budget in congress and then, very conveniently, congress went into recess.  He immediately hit the road.  

First it was New Hampshire, then back to Houston to open the campaign center and play some Risk with his campaign manager (to gain an understanding of the nuances of the electoral college) for a few days, then it was a 5 day swing through Iowa and South Carolina.  Since then he has been in Houston, occasionally sallying forth for events like the NRA annual meeting in Tennessee or a John Locke Foundation Luncheon in Raleigh, North Carolina.  

He's been on campaign for 22 days.  Out of those 22 days he's been on the move (changing location) 15 days.  I estimate by now he has probably eaten a good 8 lbs of catered chicken prepared in three extremely different ways.  He's traveled a whopping 8,914 miles, and visited places like Nashua NH (home of Holly Flax), Charleston SC, Des Moines IA, San Antonio TX.   

Events have been mostly small town hall meetings or Republican club luncheons.  The rooms are usually small but always packed.    

I'm still not voting for him.

But hey, he's working hard, traveling a lot, listening to the people, shooting out tweets.  I can barely wait to see where he goes next.