Fresh off a re-election victory, Sen. Ted Cruz showed up to Washington D.C. after Thanksgiving, sporting the scraggly beginnings of a burgeoning beard.
The reviews weren't exactly glowing. It looked as if Cruz merely skipped a day or two of shaving over the holiday.
And yet, here we are.
The Cruz Beard isn't just surviving. It's thriving.
Fans of the beard now include the likes of Esquire and Slate, whose Christina Cauterucci, apparently no fan of Cruz's politics, lamented, "I'm so sorry to report that Ted Cruz's new beard looks great."
The Cruz Beard, Cauterucci argued, gives the Texas Senator's face "a defined jawline and its first-ever hints of ruggedness and affability."
Granted, there was a certain tongue-in-cheek quality to the review from Slate, and Esquire's, too. Esquire's Ben Boskovich, for example, fired off this opening line: "Clean-shaven, Ted Cruz might have the most upsetting face in politics."
Welp.
Still, Boskovich – with Esquire's related story, "Is Ted Cruz the Zodiac Killer?" linked just a few paragraphs below – eventually worked his way around to the #TeamBeard bandwagon:
"See, the thing about this beard is that it's [expletive] endearing," Boskovich wrote. "It's salt, it's pepper, it's still a bit patchy, but good Lord, he's trying."
