Each sign of the zodiac has what’s called a key phrase. Four Seasons Astrology has a very nice listing of key phrases for both signs and planets. Here are the key phrases for the signs of the zodiac:

Aries: Key phrase: “I Am.” Adventurous, pioneering, courageous, competitive, direct, impatient, selfish. Ruled by the planet Mars.

Taurus: Key phrase: “I Have.” Sensual, earthy, loyal, materialistic, stable, stubborn, jealous, possessive. Ruled by the planet Venus.

Gemini: Key phrase: “I Think.” Mental, curious, nervous, communicative, chatty, distracted, social. Ruled by the planet Mercury.

Cancer: Key phrase: “I Feel.” Intuitive, sensitive, moody, domestic, emotional, nurturing, indirect, insecure. Ruled by the moon.

Leo: Key phrase: “I Will.” Dramatic, generous, enthusiastic, assertive, playful, vain, dignified, proud. Ruled by the sun.

Virgo: Key phrase: “I Analyze.” Logical, serious, modest, critical, clean, practical, discriminating, orderly. Ruled by the planet Mercury.

Libra: Key phrase: “I Balance.” Artistic, refined, charming, diplomatic, cooperative, fickle, idealistic. Ruled by the planet Venus.

Scorpio: Key phrase: “I Desire.” Intense, secretive, powerful, resourceful, magnetic, persistent, suspicious. Ruled by the planet Mars.

Sagittarius: Key phrase: “I Understand.” Honest, philosophical, independent, dogmatic, outgoing, blunt, optimistic. Ruled by the planet Jupiter.

Capricorn: Key phrase: “I Use.” Persevering, practical, disciplined, ambitious, conservative, patient, pessimistic. Ruled by the planet Saturn.

Aquarius: Key phrase: “I Know.” Idealistic, eccentric, unconventional, humanitarian, intellectual, tolerant, independent. Ruled by the planet Saturn.

Pisces: Key phrase: “I Believe.” Mystical, sensitive, submissive, compassionate, indecisive, self-sacrificing. Ruled by the planet Jupiter.

The key phrase for Capricorn sun and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is “I use.”

Ted Cruz Uses

Last week Cruz created a video short that included his wife and two daughters. According to this USA Today article, it was aired as an infomercial in the Iowa markets during the December 19 edition of Saturday Night Live.

In the infomercial, Cruz is reading Christmas stories to his children including “How Obamacare Stole Christmas,” “Rudolph the Underemployed Reindeer,” and “The Grinch Who Lost Her Emails.” These “Christmas stories” clearly reference Cruz’ political foes in the Democratic Party.

“Frosty the Speaker of the House,” who Cruz tells us in his infomercial, is “melting before Congress” is Paul Ryan, one of his Republican allies. Cruz sarcastically criticizes both friends and foes alike.

The last story that his daughters beg him to read is titled, “The Senator Who Saved Christmas” which pictures Cruz putting the star atop a tree.

My, oh, my. I thought candidate Donald Trump was the one whose head didn’t fit through the door.

After the airing of the infomercial, The New York Times published a cartoon of Cruz holding his “trained monkey” daughters on leashes. Cruz asked that his daughters not be involved in politics, as most political children are shielded, and The New York Times removed the cartoon.

Capricorn Cruz clearly “used” his daughters (and wife) for political gain although he drew the line at others “using” them.

Ted Cruz at Nixon.gov

While politicians have mentors, Ohio Astrology likes to find the spiritual political mentor during the election process. In the best of times, we like to think ourselves unique; in the worst of times, we like to find a kindred spirit. For Cruz, that kindred spirit is clearly Richard M. Nixon.

Where to begin?

Capricorn sun

The easiest comparison is that both Cruz and Nixon had sun in Capricorn. Capricorn is associated with discipline, caution and control. Discipline, caution and control don’t sound like much fun, but what individual, whether business person, athlete or artist, doesn’t need these traits to succeed?

Discipline, caution and control can also help one persevere into an unwelcoming crowd. Nixon was known for a brilliant mind but mean and narrow personality, yet he became president. His dogged persistence is to be admired.

Is this beginning to sound familiar?

Cruz and Nixon both demonstrate the shadow side of Capricorn which includes the excessive need for control, a meanness of spirit, a rousing of fear and paranoia (Nixon more than Cruz, but I’m expecting this to emerge in Cruz as the mud gets packed tighter and slung harder).

Success is the Capricorn throne and the crown is made of respect.

Nixon, we know, lost most, if not all, of his Capricorn gains to wade in the dark side of Capricorn – a sense of humiliation and failure from forced resignation of the presidency. Humiliation and failure are Capricorn’s deepest fears.

Moon in Aquarius/conjunct Uranus

Nixon had moon in Aquarius, which is ruled by Uranus. Uranus was also in Aquarius, but not technically conjunct. Cruz has moon in the more peaceful Libra but with Uranus conjunct. Both Aquarius and Libra are air signs which are associated with intellect. Both men possess powerful intellectual and debating skills.

Moon conjunct Uranus is a volatile combination. According to the site The Astrological Aspects by C.E.O. Carter:

This is a powerful and often a dangerous position. There is high emotional tension. Sometimes the affections are strangely and (possibly) tragically bestowed; there is an element of perversity and great determination, which may be directed wisely or unwisely, but very rarely follows any conventional or usual course. The interests are nearly always strange, and both mind and feelings differ from those of ordinary humanity, often giving rise to conditions with which it is exceedingly difficult for another to deal, because the native is deaf to reason and seems unable to help himself, there being a veritable paralysis of the judgment. Perhaps it is most perilous in Fire, and least so in Earth and Air, but I have known strange people with this aspect even in the latter element-they are, however, less excitable than those having it in Fire, their vagaries being more often intellectual. Things ordinary and common do not satisfy the nature at all, and the constant search for the marvelous may lead the native into all kinds of fantastic cults. Note particularly the strength of Mercury and Jupiter, for these planets may determine the measure and direction of the influence.

Both Nixon and Cruz are generally disliked as individuals but respected for their intellect. As Cruz himself said during the opening speech of one of the debates, “If you want someone to grab a beer with, I may not be that guy.” According to this Dallas Morning News Article:

Cruz is polarizing, and has been from the moment he emerged on the national stage. He’s alienated most Senate colleagues. That endears him to many conservative voters, even as others find him repellent.

The moon/Uranus (or moon in Aquarius) person is definitely independent in the Uranus sense but is also driven by moon compulsion. In the case of the conjunction, there was uneven or erratic emotional (moon) support from the early childhood, especially from the mother. This leads natives to seek independence from others’ emotional support. In other words, they develop an “I don’t need you” mentality. Rationality is a refuge against a world that is unreliable emotionally. Reason is always reliable because it appears to be the consistent and permanent.

While independence from emotional support from others can free one in many ways, the lack of emotional connection as president caused Nixon a bit of agony. I suspect it would be the same for Cruz.

Saturn in Taurus

Another aspect both Cruz and Nixon share is Saturn in Taurus. Often the natives with this placement feel a sense of physical want. Often they grew up poor and had to work and/or buy their own necessities. Even if they did not, there is a sense that others have more “stuff,” from cooking pots, to cars to careers.

With sun in Capricorn and Saturn in Taurus, there is the sense of the self-made man, a strong image in American life. I grew up poor and struggling while my peers had silver spoons in their mouths . . .

This sense of lack was very apparent in Nixon who created a secret “slush funds” to fund his campaign. Cruz probably has no need for such a fund as the non-secretive Super PAC seems to have replaced the secret slush funds.

Pluto in Gemini/Virgo

Nixon was of the Pluto in Gemini generation (his at 28 degrees). Gemini is ruled by Mercury. Nixon saw the rise of radio then television. In the 1960 debates, it’s well reported that those hearing the debate favored Nixon those watching favored John F. Kennedy. The reason, it is supposed, is that we could see Nixon sweating.

Nixon, an intelligent man, fixed the sweating issue by allowing makeup in future television appears. He also later “used” television to his advantage.

Cruz was born with Pluto in Virgo (his at 29 degrees). Virgo is also ruled by Mercury. Like Nixon, Cruz is of a generation that is evolving how it communicates. Cruz, like all candidates, knows the power of television and today’s power of social media and satirical TV shows and news.

Could you imagine in 1960 candidates campaigning on comedy shows?

The Checkers Speech

Much of Nixon’s personality is revealed in his famous “Checkers Speech.” In this 1952 speech, as he was running for Vice President, Nixon responded to the claims that he created a political slush fund and used that money for personal use.

The speech is a glorious demonstration of Nixon’s Capricorn sense of working harder than others while being attacked by his enemies. He goes into great detail about his paltry wages (Saturn in Taurus) and his expenses.

While Nixon didn’t bring in his daughters as did Cruz, he certainly mentions them to evoke the pathos he is seeking. His wife does, toward the end of the speech, make an awkward appearance:

I should say this, that Pat [Nixon’s wife] doesn’t have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat, and I always tell her she would look good in anything.

And:

A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog, and, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore, saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was?

It was a little cocker spaniel dog, in a crate that he had sent all the way from Texas, black and white, spotted, and our little girl Tricia, the six year old, named it Checkers.

Cruz Christmas Classics differs in one important way. While both Cruz’ and Nixon’s videos have a heady glow of self-righteousness, Nixon is definitely more self-pitying. Yet, both invoke the savior. For Cruz, it is himself. For Nixon, it is Eisenhower:

Why do I feel so deeply? Why do I feel that in spite of the smears, the misunderstanding, the necessity for a man to come up here and bare his soul? And I want to tell you why.

I love my country. And I think my country is in danger. And I think the only man that can save America at this time is the man that’s running for President, on my ticket, Dwight Eisenhower.

On the other hand, for Cruz to put his children in a mean-spirited video then cry foul when they are then used by the media has some of the Nixon self-pitying paranoia that made him so unappealing.

Why Nixon? Why Cruz?

If the unlikeable Nixon made it to the top of the mountain, could Cruz?

Nixon ran during the turbulent 1960s which released chaotic energy that created fear. Nixon promised law and order to ameliorate the fear.

From the Checkers speech:

You say, why do I think it [our country] is in danger? And I say look at the record. Seven years of the Truman-Acheson administration, and what’s happened? Six hundred million people lost to Communists.

And a war in Korea in which we have lost 117,000 American casualties, and I say that those in the State Department that made the mistakes which caused that war and which resulted in those losses should be kicked out of the State Department just as fast as we can get them out of there.

Communism is gone (like the wind) and Korea exists in its tenuous state. Times have ‘a changed and today our war is with the Middle East:

From MSNBC:

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz called on the United States to acknowledge “the evil” of “radical Islamic terrorism” following a series of deadly attacks on civilians in Paris, telling reporters moments before a religious liberty rally here at Bob Jones University that “we are at war” with the Islamic State. At least 129 people were killed in the coordinated attacks at several cites around the French capital.

I’m now at that age where the political process is pure theater having seen the same promises made over and over again. Democrat Hillary Clinton promises to tax the richest of the rich. Why haven’t eight years of Obama accomplished that? Or eight years of Clinton the Male?

During the primaries, the candidates always but always develop a “tax plan” which is pure theater. The tax code never eases, never becomes more simple. And there’s always the candidate with the flat tax plan. It never happens.

The Republicans want to make America tough and strong “again.” Is not the power to blow up the world strength enough? We are strong and there is war. What’s the true origin of war?

One political selling point that never dies is fear. Studies have shown that “bad is stronger than good,” in that we are more affected by a negative event (such as losing money) rather than a positive event (such as winning money). In effect, we fear loss. Possibly we have this “negativity bias” because we are all facing the ultimate loss eventually – death.

Cruz isn’t the only candidate selling fear. But like Nixon, with whom he shares some important astrological markers, he may be the most effective.