(Syuzanna Petrosyan, Neon Tommy)

Last March, at a luncheon in Miami along with Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Ted Cruz said: "Hopefully…Fidel Castro and Raul Castro will joint Hugo Chavez." 

Senator Cruz, who is of Cuban descent, is a vocal critic of Castros. Cruz's father fled Cuba for the United States as a teenager. 

Not only might Senator Cruz encounter Castro, he is going to have to listen to him, too, as President Castro will join Barack Obama and South Africa's president, Jacob Zuma, among speakers paying tribute to Mandela. 

"Of all the Members of the United States Senate to lead a delegation to the funeral of perhaps the most revered statesman in modern times, you've got to wonder, why Ted Cruz?" said a Democratic Congressional aide. "He's not exactly a guy known for his views on reconciliation or social and racial empowerment. Looks like a pretty transparent attempt to rework his image after his self-engineered government shutdown debacle."