Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks during a campaign event, Saturday, Jan. 30, 2016, in Ames, Iowa.The Associated Press
At a rally in Ames, Iowa on Saturday, Ted Cruz busts out a nifty little aphorism to describe the meddlesome nature of the federal government he intends to vastly cut back if he wins the U.S. presidency.
It's one of his favourite lines, apparently, repeated at scores of campaign stops across the Hawkeye State in the weeks leading up to Monday's caucuses.
"What's the difference between regulators and locusts?" the Texas senator asks. "You can't use pesticide on the regulators."
If that quip sounds familiar, it's because it's cribbed from former Alberta premier Ralph Klein. In 1990 Mr. Klein, then a first-term MLA from Calgary, described Edmonton: "A fine city with too many socialists and mosquitoes. At least you can spray the mosquitoes."
Of course, Mr. Cruz would hardly be the first politician to borrow a phrase.
Ronald Reagan, for instance, liked to tell a joke about standing on a big pile of manure while campaigning at a farm. The punchline: "That's the first time I've ever given a Republican speech from a Democratic platform." That anecdote was lifted from Mitchell Hepburn, premier of Ontario from 1934 to 1942 – the difference being that Mr. Hepburn, a Liberal, described his impromptu stage of fertilizer as a "Tory platform."
And one of Bill Clinton's best lines in his 1992 presidential campaign – "Together we can make the country we love the country it was meant to be" – sounded uncannily similar to British Labour Leader Neil Kinnock's "Together we can transform Britain from the country she has become to the country she can be."
But Mr. Cruz's choice of source material is particularly intriguing given his attempts to distance himself from his Alberta past. Born in Calgary to a Cuban father and American mother in 1970, he has faced repeated questions about whether his Canadian birth makes him ineligible to be president. Mr. Cruz even went so far as to formally renounce his Canadian citizenship in 2014 to try to put the matter to rest.
That hasn't stopped Donald Trump from needling him on the matter at candidates' debates. And protesters dressed in Red Serge waving "Ted Cruz Likes Nickelback" signs have shown up at some of his rallies in Iowa.
Still, if Mr. Cruz is going to crib from any Canadian politician, perhaps it's not surprising it's from Mr. Klein. Not only was the late King Ralph eminently quotable (you could fill a book with his one-liners), but he and Mr. Cruz were ideological soul mates.
Mr. Klein slashed Alberta's budget, paid off the province's debt and even once blew up a hospital to cut health care costs.
It's unlikely Mr. Cruz ever crossed paths with him in Calgary – Mr. Cruz decamped to Texas in his early childhood, when Mr. Klein was still a television reporter – but if he wins the presidency, it's a sure bet Mr. Cruz will be emulating more than just the former Alberta premier's rhetoric.