I Think Ted Cruz Has a Theory on Why President Obama Got to Head the Harvard Law Review

Ted Cruz writes in his book, A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America:

While I was learning life lessons in [Harvard] law school. I also tried out for the law review...

At Harvard, people still talked about the first black president of that prestigious legal journal...

In my second year, I decided to run for president of the law review. I wanted the position, of course, because it provided as close to a lock on a Supreme Court clerkship as one might get. I soon learned that I had zero chance of winning.

Election of the law review president was a ruthless process, one worthy of study by Machiavelli. The electiom was not necessarily for the brightest among us, or the most accomplished, or the most articulate. None of us wanted someone like that getting the job and thus increasing his or her odds of getting a Supreme Court clerkship at our expense. Rather, the way you got elected was to demonstrate you posed little threat to other law review colleagues as possible. Those without aany interest in a clerkship or those certain to get one anyway were thus front-runners.

 -RW