Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is a fan of the speech Ashton Kutcher gave at the Teen Choice Awards last week.
"Remarkable speech by @aplusk," the Texas Republican and possible 2016 presidential candidate wrote on Twitter. "Great message, esp for young people, about hard work & opportunity."
The YouTube video of Kutcher delivering a speech on Aug. 11 after he was presented the "Ultimate Choice" award has drawn nearly one million views.
After revealing that his first name is actually Chris and that Ashton is his middle name, he went on to explain that "opportunity looks a lot like hard work."
"I've never had a job in my life that I was better than. I was always just lucky to have a job. And every job I had was a stepping stone to my next job," Kutcher said as he described the work he did ranging from carrying roofing shingles up a ladder for his dad to sweeping up "Cheerios dust" off a factory floor.
"Life can be a lot broader, when you realize one simple thing — and that is that everything around us that we call life was made up by people that are no smarter than you," Kutcher continued. "And you can build your own thing. You can build your own life . . . So build your own life. Don't live one, build one. So find your opportunity."
Kutcher credited his latest role as Apple founder and tech wizard Steve Jobs in the just-released movie "Jobs" as helping to teach him a lot about what he described in his speech as the principles of life.
He also told his young audience to forget about trying to look sexy by succumbing to all the things that "people try to sell you.
"Don't buy it," he said.
"The sexiest thing in the entire world is being really smart, and being thoughtful, and being generous. Everything else is crap. I promise you," the actor said.
Kutcher has also received praise from other conservatives, including
radio host Rush Limbaugh, who described his comments as "a traditional, uplifting, motivational, and inspirational speech on how he became successful."
"It's remarkable," Limbaugh said, adding that teenagers may hear the same message "from their parents" on occasion but they don't hear it enough from the nation's leaders, who seem to focus more on how bad things are.
"I don't know . . . him," the hard right conservative said of Kutcher, noting that he thought actor was probably a liberal Democrat. "All I know is that what he said is right on. All I know is that what he said is exactly what young people in this country need to hear."
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