Rick Santorum mocks Ted Cruz for 'Green Eggs and Ham'

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Cruz famously read Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham during a 21-hour talk-a-thon on the Senate floor in 2013, providing an easy target for his 2016 rivals.

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum features the clip in his first television commercial of the campaign. Released Monday, the ad dubbed "Fairytales" ends with the voiceover: "You want someone to read one helluva bedtime story, Ted Cruz is your guy. If you want to protect America and defeat ISIS, Rick Santorum's your president. Because serious times need serious people."

That last phrase also rings a bell for Aaron Sorkin fans, when fictional president Andrew Shepherd called out his challenger in the 1995 movie The American President: "We have serious problems to solve and we need serious people to solve them."

Cruz' Senate stand was in September 2013 in protest of the Affordable Care Act, which President Obama signed three years earlier.

The Santorum ad buy is for network, cable and digital platforms in Iowa this week, according to an announcement from Santorum's campaign.

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