By James M. Perry

Unquestionably, Ted Cruz, the rookie Republican senator from Texas, is smart.

He was, for example, a champion debater at Princeton University, competing for The American Whig-Cliosophic Society (Debate question: Do you favor changing the name of the American Whig-Cliosophic Society?) He and his partner, David Panton, cleaned up just about every debating prize at Princeton. He graduated with honors and moved on to the Harvard University Law School, where he won honors again.

He clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist and wrote one of the briefs in District of Columbia v Heller, a landmark case in which the High Court ruled that the Second Amendment did, indeed, allow private citizens the right to be armed.

He was one of the youngest partners in Philadelphia's biggest law firm, Morgan, Lewis and Bockius (1,200 lawyers in 24 offices here and abroad. Cruz's office was in Houston).

Many Republicans think he should run for president.

The question before the house might well be: Do really smart politicians always make good office-holders?

In Senator Cruz's case, the early evidence suggests the answer might be, Not always.

In early votes in the Senate, Cruz voted no to helping the victims of Hurricane Sandy, no on reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, no on raising the debt ceiling. He was one of three senators to vote no on confirming John Kerry as Secretary of State. He voted against confirming Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, too, even suggesting that the governments of Saudi Arabia and North Korea might have paid him speaking fees following his retirement from the Senate.

During the Hagel confirmation hearings, the 42-year old senator lectured 79-year-old Dianne Feinstein of California on the meaning of the Second Amendment. "I'm not a sixth grader," she replied. Senator Feinstein, when she was president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978, heard the shots and then discovered the body of supervisor Harvey Milk. The mayor, George Moscone, was also assassinated. The senator (left, at Milk memorial in 1978) knows something about guns.

Kerry and Hagel are both decorated veterans of the War in Vietnam No one, said John McCain, should question Chuck Hagel's integrity. (Or, for that matter, John Kerry's.) Senator Cruz has not spent time in the armed forces.

Anyone observing Senator Cruz's academic record might think he would want to step forward and rejuvenate the Republican Party, awash these days in tea party conspiracies and scurrilous denunciations of men and women whose only crime is that they belong to the Democratic Party. Not Senator Cruz. He chimes right in. President Obama, he once said, is the most radical president in U.S. history. He surely knows better. Either that or Princeton and and Harvard (supposedly two of the world's leading scholarly institutions) didn't do their job. He once said, too, that there were a dozen communists, intent on overthrowing the U.S. government, on the Harvard Law faculty when he was there in the early '90s. Not so, said one of his professors, Charles Fried, a Republican.

We have had brilliant men who turned out to be mediocre or even losing presidents. Jimmy Carter, for example, admitted publicly his IQ was an astonishing 176. Richard Nixon and Woodrow Wilson both had high IQ's.

Franklin Roosevelt's IQ was probably about average for a U.S. president. Walter Lippmann, a leading columnist, said FDR was "a pleasant man, who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be President." Washington, Jackson, Eisenhower, and Reagan probably had middling IQs too.

Brilliance really isn't good enough. We need common sense and a conviction that members of the other party aren't all villains. A touch of humor wouldn't hurt, either. It worked for Lincoln.

James M. Perry, a prominent veteran political reporter, is contributing regular observations for post-gazette.com. Mr. Perry was the chief political correspondent of The Wall Street Journal until his retirement. Prior to that, he covered national politics for the Dow Jones weekly, The National Observer.

It's relatively rare for a US Senator to wade into state legislation, but that's what Democrat Bob Casey did today in coming out against a GOP proposal to change the way Pennsylvania awards presidential electoral votes.

Casey issued a letter to the proposal's lead sponsor, state Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, saying the bill "would drastically alter the method by which the Commonwealth allocates its 20 electoral votes and diminish the historical role Pennsylvania has played in electing our Nation's presidents. I respectfully urge you to reconsider this legislation."

Like most states Pennsylvania uses a winner-take-all system for awarding its votes. Pileggi's proposal would divvy them up by voting percentage, while a similar proposal in the House would award them by congressional district. (The GOP currently has a 13-5 advantage in congressional seats.) Republicans say the change would more accurately reflect who the state's voters want to be president, while Democrats say it's a GOP power-grab that would render the state relatively meaningless in presidential years since it would put few electoral votes up for grabs.

The full letter from Casey, a Democrat, is below:

Good morning, unless you're CNN, we suppose. Here are your morning links:

1. Mayor Luke, stuffed with a hearty course of lame duck, wants to fire the officer who threatened a South Side partier with a Taser Sunday. Cue grumbles from the police union, since the officer never actually fired his weapon. Can we just mention this is the same cop who once responded to a domestic call in 1999 -- and returned to have sex with the woman involved later that night? ("I screwed up a little bit with my wife," he said later.)

2. Liquor privatization is headed to the state House floor, though with a few changes. Legislators stripped provisions allowing beer in grocery stores from Gov. Tom Corbett's plan and will ease exiting state stores out more slowly. Don't get excited yet: Similar measures were proposed last year but didn't get a vote.

3. A Cumberland County minister has announced a run for governor (slightly newer AP story here). State Democratic Party Chairman Jim Burn said he met the guy last year and was impressed with his "very deep convictions", though he didn't sound as impressed about his statewide appeal. Pretty snazzy website, though. 

4. Turnpike CEO Mark Compton is warnin' ya: There will be no more corruption on these highways, so long as he's sheriff.

5. Four former Pa. governors says state appellate judges, including now-convicted Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin, should be appointed and not elected. Govs. Thornburgh, Rendell, Leader and Ridge signed a letter telling state officials that forcing judges to campaign cramps their credibility -- or, you know, can put them in jail.

Today's state holidays: Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Day, Arts Education Advocacy Day, Life Sciences Day.

State House committee members have reworked Gov. Tom Corbett's plan to privatize wine and liquor sales in Pennsylvania, dropping beer in grocery stores and phasing out state stores slowly.

Karen Langley reports from Harrisburg:

The changes supported by House Liquor Control Committee Chairman John Taylor, R-Philadelphia, would give beer distributors an early chance to buy a license for wine and spirits sales. Grocery stores could sell wine but, unlike in the governor's plan, would not receive expanded opportunities to sell beer.

Pennsylvania wine and spirits stores would be phased out by county as private wine and spirits sales increased. Once fewer than 100 stores remained, the Liquor Control Board would be required to shutter its retail operation.

And believe it or not, Gov. Corbett is OK with it:

"The governor always said his bill was a starting point and he was willing to work with the members of the General Assembly," spokesman Kevin Harley said. "That's what you've seen here. This is certainly something that is historic in terms of giving consumers greater choice and convenience."

The plan will now head to the House floor for debate, where Democrats say they have some amendments planned.