The Week — Cruz swings, the Fair wins and Braley heads for the mountains.

CRUZ MASTERFULLY SLICES HARD RIGHT INTO AMEN CORNER

First impression: Ted Cruz is no snooze.

The U.S. senator from Texas and first bona fide Republican presidential candidate marched boldly into Caucusland this week. He drew big, impressive crowds, including upward of 200 people at a stop in Cedar Rapids Thursday afternoon. They had to take down a wall to make room for overflow. Needing a bigger room is always a good sign.

Heck, you'd think it was a Chic-fil-A at supper time. Nope.

The throng found themselves gazing upon a candidate with considerable skills. Cruz is a highly engaging speaker with a knack for storytelling and a sharp sense of humor. He made it look easy as he zinged all the usual suspects. Harry Reid, Joe Biden, RINO leaders in Congress, Washington elites, the New York Times, the mushy middle, Jimmy Carter, Obamacare, Hillary and, of course, the mainstream media. Happy to be of service.

Thanks to those radical rascals and others, conservatives have been tricked, assaulted, openly persecuted and denied freedom. They have treaded on you.

'The greatest trick the left ever played is to convince conservatives that Americans don't share our values,” Cruz said, to applause.

'Religious liberty has never been more under assault in this country,” Cruz said.

'Amen” came from a few voices in the crowd. It happened more than once, and Cruz received multiple standing ovations.

So villains. Check. Grievances. Check.

New ideas to change the nation's direction? Not so much.

For all of Cruz's calls for bold colors, renewal, turning the page and changing direction, his agenda breaks no new ground. Any Republican could run on this stuff, and many have.

Even his path to victory is retro. Cruz wants to rebuild the Reagan coalition, circa 1980. When he was 10.

President Cruz would create a postcard flat tax, an idea first heard in Iowa back in 1995. Steve Forbes promised to stab the tax code in the heart. Cruz jokes about sending 90,000 IRS workers to secure the border. Advantage Cruz.

President Cruz would repeal every word of Obamacare. No kidding?

President Cruz will take on the 'regulators,” perhaps with pesticide (joking!), cut spending, close the Department of Education, vaporize the Common Core, march in locked arms with Israel and restore American leadership abroad. Rights to religion, privacy and firearms will be restored. Secure the border before doing anything else to fix the immigration system.

'Russia and Iran openly mocking the President of the United States,” Cruz lamented, without irony.

Bonus points to Cruz for saying he would fix Social Security by gradually raising the retirement age, slowing the growth of benefits and allowing private accounts. That's more detail than either candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa was willing to give us last year.

And, yep, I know it's a stump speech on Cruz's first trip as an official candidate. His job is to get people fired up, not present detailed policies. Mission accomplished. But I go into every campaign event hoping to hear at least one interesting new idea. Needless to say, I am perpetually disappointed.

After his talk, a reporter asked Cruz about Indiana's religious freedom law saga. Cruz expressed support for the law and a similar effort in Arkansas to provide a legal shield for folks uncomfortable with equality for gays and lesbians, citing religious grounds. Both states have backtracked amid a backlash, but Cruz chalked it up to 'extreme partisan support for mandatory same-sex marriage in all 50 states.”

'It has been unfortunate in the past week, the hysteria and vilification that has been directed at those states for protecting what used to be a common sense area of agreement. It is sad how far we've come,” Cruz said.

That seems to capture the Cruz campaign in a nutshell. 'It is sad how far we've come.” Progress is persecution. Change is a trick. Equality is a plot. Back to the 80s! When things made sense.

AN AUGUST DEBATE ENDS IN A FAIR WIN

If you picked the 'Iowa State Fair” over 'Local Public Schools” in your Important Iowa Institutions March Madness bracket, winner, winner pork-chop-on-a-stick dinner!

You may recall back in December, the Branstad administration informed local school district officials they would no longer be allowed by the Department of Education to set their own school year start dates. Instead, the state would enforce a 30-plus year old law requiring schools to start the week of Sept. 1. For many years, education officials had granted waivers under the law allowing districts to start earlier.

Gov. Terry Branstad sided with tourism interests who complained that August start dates hurt their businesses. The Iowa State Fair led the charge.

Now, Branstad says he will sign a 'compromise” bill passed by lawmakers barring schools from starting before Aug. 23. This year's state fair, incidentally, runs Aug. 13-23. Weird.

So local schools lose yet another fleeting scrap of local control so that our great State Fair, which already draws 1 million people annually, could sell a few more tickets and butter up its bottom line. Seems like an excellent example of forward-thinking education policy.

State Education Director Brad Buck, soon to be Cedar Rapids' new superintendent, demanded that districts show scientific evidence on how starting earlier than September benefits kids. We have yet to see a shred of data on how a state power grab actually benefits tourism, or kids. But second-guessing and blocking local government decision-making is Branstad's signature move.

So school will start after Aug. 23. But that's not the only change I see coming.

Lunch menus …

Monday - Corn Dog

Tuesday - Funnel Cake

Wednesday - Smoked turkey leg

Thursday - Pork Producers' choice

Math curriculum …

1. If the Big Boar, weighing 1,250 lbs., leaves the swine barn traveling .02 mph, how many hours will it take him to reach the Grand Concourse?

2. If a lemon half dropped into a lemonade shake-up displaces four ounces of liquid, and the huge scoop of ice displaces 10 ounces, how many teaspoons of lemonade do you get for $2.50?

Social Studies …

At the Iowa State Fair, Mitt Romney said 'Corporations are …” what?

A. Our new overlords

B. Super awesome

C. People

D. My only real friends

Watch for these and other changes at a school near you.

Also, rumor has it there's a secret provision in the bill requiring mandatory fair attendance for all Iowans. You will receive your bus assignments shortly.

HE WAS BORN IN THE SUMMER OF HIS 57TH YEAR

So word comes that former U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, fresh from his stinging U.S. Senate loss last fall, has taken a gig with a Rocky Mountain high-powered Denver law firm Leventhal & Puga P.C.

Who can blame him?

If I were Braley, I'd have grown a long beard, grabbed a few bottles from that famous hotel tray in Texas and headed for the mountains, far, far away from unneighborly chickens, squealing pigs and thin-skinned farmers. No sense sticking around the scene of your toughest spinning buttfall. It can only bring constant sorrow.

Hop on the bus, Bruce, and get yourself free. Make some bread, the kind with no bread bags.

Braley received $1.4 million in contributions from lawyers and law firms during his Senate run, but the Leventhal firm donated just $1,250. The gift of a fresh start? Priceless.

PODCAST!

Check out this week's On Iowa Politics Podcast, featuring The Gazette's James Lynch, Lee Statehouse Bureau Chief Erin Murphy, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier political writer Christinia Crippes, The Quad-City Time's Ed Tibbetts and some lame columnist. Cruz, Hillary, the funnel deadline and much, much more.