DES MOINES, IOWA — Senator Ted Cruz’s face was said to have been “absolutely beaming” last night as former Presidents Bob Dole and John Kerry initiated him into a very select club.

“Bob Dole is here today,” Bob Dole told reporters, “to welcome this fine man into our very unique and special club.” The Iowa to the White House Club, Dole told the media, was started by him in 1988 after he won his first Iowa caucus and eventually went on to the White House, to visit it. “Oh sure, it would have been fine and dandy for Bob Dole to be President Bob Dole,” Bob Dole also said, “but White House Visitor Bob Dole also has quite a nice ring to it.”

John Kerry, who is currently serving as President Barack H. Obama’s Secretary of State, told Cruz he was “in for quite a surprise” now that he’s won Iowa and that his “life would never be the same.”

“I remember winning Iowa back in 2004,” Kerry said, “and the country was seemingly sick of the Bush Administration and the Iraq War. I was just sure i’d wind up in the White House, and you know what? I was right. Eventually, nine years later I was in the Oval Office, behind the desk. Because the president had dropped his pen and he couldn’t find it. But still, I was in the White House!”

Though they couldn’t attend the initiation ceremony past inductees into the Iowa to the White House Club Mike Huckabee (2008), Rick Santorum (2012), Al Gore (2000), Tom Harkin (1992), and Dick Gephart (1988) all sent cards and flowers congratulating Cruz on his victory in Iowa. Cruz said he was “deeply honored” by the recognition from “such past clear and obvious winners.” Gore’s card told Cruz he hoped that he “had just as much fun watching someone else make the decisions that shaped the country” as he has for the last sixteen years.

“Bob Dole knows that Ted Cruz has what it takes to be an Iowa caucus winner,” Bob Dole told reporters, “no one wants him to be president. Which is of course why the conservative voters of Iowa want to force him on the rest of the Republican Party, and eventually the country. I look forward to watching him lose in November, if he’s even the nominee, like we all did, and keeping the tradition alive for another four years. Bob Dole thanks you for your attention to Bob Dole.”