Thread: Trump and Cruz: Your Wives Are Not Political Props

Trump and Cruz: Your Wives Are Not Political Props

Jay Newton-Small @JNSmall
March 24, 2016

Dear Donald Trump and Ted Cruz: Your wives are not political props.

This all started Tuesday as voters in Utah and Arizona were going to the polls, when Trump tweeted, then erased, and then tweeted again a missile against Cruz: “Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!”

Trump was referring to a Facebook ad of a risqué shot of a nude Melania Trump lying on some furs that was featured years ago in GQ, complete with a tagline: “Meet Melania Trump. Your next First Lady. Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday.” The ad, run by an outside group backing Cruz, was clearly meant to target Mormon voters in Utah leery of Trump’s three marriages, his most recent to supermodel Melania, 26 years his junior.

Cruz won Utah with 69% of the vote; Trump came in third with 14% after Ohio Gov. John Kasich with 16% — which is perhaps why on Wednesday Trump retweeted a supporter’s tweet which showed a snarling Heidi Cruz’s face next to a gorgeous shot of Melania with this tag line: “No need to ‘Spill the beans,’ the images are worth a thousand words.”

Cruz defended his wife on Twitter and at a press conference called Trump a “sniveling coward” for attacking women. “Donald does seem to have an issue with women. Donald doesn’t like strong women,” Cruz said. “Real men don’t try to bully women. That’s not an action of strength. That’s an action of weakness. It’s an action of fear. It’s an action of a small and petty man who is intimidated by strong women.” Though, notably. When repeatedly pressed, Cruz refused to rule out supporting Trump, who has a lead of 274 pledged delegates, if he becomes the eventual nominee.

The latest exchange is just another example of Trump’s small hands tizzy, says Kelly Dittmar, a scholar at Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics. “Instead of responding to the attack on Melania from the anti-Trump PAC by calling it out for the misogyny it represents, Trump played into the same type of objectification of women by endorsing a response that placed his wife’s — and Heidi Cruz’s — value in appearance alone,” Dittmar said. “This back-and-forth is yet another display of both men seeking to reinforce their masculinity in different ways, whether by — in Trump’s case — competing to be the candidate with the hottest wife, or — in Cruz’s case — by embodying the role of protector and defender of his family.”

Indeed, Cruz — who notably did not call for the Melania ad to be taken down — is no stranger to using his wife as a political prop. When he first announced his candidacy for president, he spent more time talking about Heidi’s baking talents than he did her highly successful Goldman Sachs banking career.

Cruz, seeking to burnish his social conservative credentials, buries his wife’s success behind her role of mother and supporter, says Michelle Swers, a professor at Georgetown University who studies women in politics. “In this anti-Wall Street climate her association with Goldman Sachs will be questioned,” Swers says. “As more women are in the workforce the careers of potential First Ladies will be scrutinized.”

A March Reuters/Ipsos poll found that half of all women had a “very unfavorable” view of Trump, up from 40% in a similar survey conducted in October. And a December Quinnipiac poll found both Trump and Cruz underwater with women in favorable/unfavorable standings.

A Republican presidential candidate has not won the women’s vote since Ronald Reagan. George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush only won the White House by mitigating the loss of women, who turn out on average 10 percent more than male voters, to the single digits. That gap would likely prove more difficult to close if Hillary Clinton becomes the first female nominee fielded by either party.

Especially if the Republican debate on women is limited to who’s prettier and how good a baker one’s wife is.

http://time.com/4271578/trump-cruz-melania-heidi-props/

Well, Jay-Newton Small, you're half right and half wrong. You're right that Republicans today do not do well with women and lose because of the women vote. We lose because of the women vote because of policies, not First Ladies. We lose because of a party platform that opposes women's rights and policies that want to restrict reproductive and abortion rights. It's a touchy subject in our party, because for example I'm Pro-Choice and firmly believe that pregnant girls and women have an inalienable right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy without any interference by government. I do not see a good society or a healthy nation coming from anti-abortion policies, laws and court rulings. I just can't see why the future of a embryo or fetus prevails over the future of the pregnant girl or woman carrying it. Her rights, her life, her health, her well-being, her dreams, her future are paramount. Why anyone would want to put her life secondary to an embryo or a fetus that she doesn't want to bring into this world is just something I can't get my head around. So any discussion about Republicans and women voters needs to stay focused on the policies not the personalities of candidates running for President.

As to the Tweeter back and forth between Trump and Cruz, this is just part of Tweeter World in 2016. This is new to politics and while I don't Tweet or Facebook, at all on any level, I see the political advantages of Tweets. For example, Cruz does a bad thing, and that is interjecting a photo ad of Melania into the political advertising, doing so through Liz Mair, a terrible person, and her horrible PAC of Anti-Trumpers.

Trump finds out about it and Tweets a one sentence response:

Lyin' Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin' Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!

There's a lot to spill on Heidi Cruz. Buried in her professional background is her association with Wall Street, employed by Merrill-Lynch, then Goldman-Sachs, serving on the Council of Foreign Relations, working on Latin American Development at the expense of the American People, promoting the North American Union, working for Condoleeza Rice during the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, possibly even being part of the Iraq War Agenda, and also borrowing money from her bosses at Goldman-Sachs to fund the loans to finance Ted Cruz's Senate Campaign, the same loans that he failed to report to the Federal Elections Commission. Heidi Cruz is also the primary fund-raiser for the Cruz campaign, and possibly the PACS, Ted Cruz is claiming he knows nothing about and has nothing to do with like Liz Mair's who ran the ad on Melania.

So Trump is absolutely right to say to Ted, "watch out or I'll hit you back". Trump didn't go after Heidi. He said nothing negative or derogatory about her. He warned Ted about Heidi, the same as he warned Hillary about Bill, you punch our side, I'll punch back. Would we really want a candidate for President who said nothing in response to that ad? There was nothing wrong with the photo of Melania, it was a beautiful photo of her for a GQ shoot in Great Britain, 16 years ago when she was a professional model earning a lot of money, years before she was married to Donald Trump. It's very tasteful, shows no private parts, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. What was wrong was the ad itself, not the photo, because the ad said if you don't want this for first lady, vote for Ted Cruz on Tuesday.

I guess Liz Mair thinks Ted is running for First Lady.

In any event, the ad was used to target a specific religious group of women in Utah and also Arizona. There is so much wrong with what Cruz and the Super Pac did here. First, they assume that Mormon Women view women differently than other women. Is that true? Do Mormon women think differently than other women in the United States? I don't think so. I think to imply they do is a background hit on Mormon women. But whatever that may be, the ad didn't have any effect in Arizona, Trump won a mile. Trump lost Utah, but that's because of what people like Mitt Romney did to Trump in Utah where Romney would have some influence. I believe that's Romney's last stand, his Alamo, but whatever. He helped Cruz get some delegates out of Utah, I'll give him that, but the price he paid for it was very high, because Romney has disgraced himself with lies, he's disgraced the Romney name with the most bizarre political behavior I've ever seen with his STOP TRUMP, NEVER TRUMP, ANYONE BUT TRUMP campaign, endorsing Kasich in Ohio, then voting for and endorsing Cruz in Utah. And Romney did even more than that which has had very little coverage surprisingly so I'll post it again here:

Mitt Romney Mocks Donald Trump’s Foreign-Born Wives

by Alex Swoyer
23 Mar 2016 Washington, DC

2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney took a swipe at GOP frontrunner Donald Trump during a GOP dinner on Tuesday night, mocking him for his foreign-born wives.

“Donald Trump has had several foreign wives. It turns out that there really are jobs Americans won’t do,” Romney reportedly joked at the Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) GOP dinner on Tuesday night.

Two of Trump’s three wives were from other countries. Ivana, Trump’s first wife, was born in Czechoslovakia and Trump’s current wife Melania is from Slovenia.

Trump previously took a swipe at Romney, questioning whether or not Romney was Mormon during a campaign rally in Utah.

Romney responded to that jab on Tuesday night, mocking, ““He could have just asked my wives.”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...gn-born-wives/

So who is attacking who here? It's very clear that Cruz, Romney, Mair and the Anti-Trump, STOP TRUMP campaigns are attacking Melania to get to Trump. Melania and Ivana are both foreign-born, yes, but they are naturalized US citizens and have been for many years. And they aren't running for President. Ted Cruz is foreign-born, he was born in Canada, to a non-citizen father, a father that was Cuban and became Canadian during the Vietnam War. Ted Cruz isn't even eligible to be in this race because he's not a natural born citizen, yet he's the one running for President with Romney's endorsement, promotion and yes, his vote to boot.

So how did Donald Trump respond to all this ... a simple note that if you don't stop this, I'll punch you back and spill the beans on your wife.

Then a Trump Supporter somewhere prepared a side-by-side photoshop of Heidi in a grimace and a lovely photo of Melania and sent it to Trump's Tweeter account with the labels "no need to spill the beans, a picture is worth 1000 words." Trump liked it and Retweeted it.

Why not? Trump didn't bring the wives into the campaign. Ted Cruz and Mitt Romney did that. So why is the free press and media blaming Trump for this? Why is anyone blaming Trump for this? Trump hasn't said anything publicly about it, he may in the future, but so far he and Melania are going busily about their business ignoring the whole thing except for the one response from Trump warning Ted to stop what he was doing and Retweeting the Tweet from a Trump Supporter. All fine in my book.

Meanwhile, ole Wiley Coyote Ted Cruz is trying to act like tough Cowboy, which he isn't, pointing his finger at fans pretending they're Donald Trump calling Trump a "coward", claiming he has a "problem with women", saying Trump "is scared of strong women", and blah, blah, blah.

Well, you know, it's not Trump who has the problem with the women. Ted Cruz and Mitt Romney have problems with strong women. Melania is a very strong, smart, intelligent, successful woman as is Ivana, so Trump likes strong women, he married 2 strong women. I don't know that much about Marla Maples, but she may be a strong woman, too. But Ivana and Melania are very strong women. Trump has all types of strong women who work for him. He was raised by a strong woman, his sister is a Federal Judge, and a very strong woman. His daughter Ivanka helps run his companies, a very strong woman. His other daughter Tiffany is going to college and wants to go to law school, a very strong young woman as well.

For weenies like Ted Cruz to claim Donald Trump has problems with strong women, is just silly, which is the single word that best sums up Ted Cruz. He's silly. He's the silly Wiley Coyote, who wants to win so badly that he'll do anything and say anything to try to achieve it, because he just doesn't know his limitations.

Chris Matthews rightly summed up Cruz statements as "cheap theater" and "self-righteous indignation" because in a phrase "Ted got Trumped". And Chris is right because as nice and pretty and strong as Heidi may be, she's no Melania in the looks book. So for Ted and his PACS to start the Looks War, was a war lost from the first shot when they tried to exploit Melania to win Utah.

I do hope though that the word gets out about Heidi Cruz professional involvement in policies and goals that are against the best interest of the United States. Ted Cruz has made it clear that she's part of his team, part of his process, part of the campaign, lining up donors to whom he will owe to whom he will be obligated. We know he supports legalization, we know he supports the TPP (and no saying NOW that you don't, doesn't fly, that's just more lies from Lyin' Ted to try to win, just part of his ACME game against the Road Runner), and also buried deep in his upbringing his belief that he's the "anointed one" to organize the world for the benefit of a few Kings who will divide up the spoils.

Anyway, there's a huge story here and it would be nice if just once, our "free press" and media would investigate this story, find the "beans" and publish articles about something that matters, that being the policies on immigration and trade, American sovereignty, American Workers, American Trade and the treasonous pacts with illicit anti-American consequences and inform the public.

Or will yet another Presidential cycle come and go without any investigative reporting on the actual policies that are destroying our country?

Come on Time magazine, you know better than this. Get off your duffs, do the work and print some actual news.

Why hasn't anyone in the media attacked Liz Mair and Rick Wilson who created the ad trying to attack Melania and Mitt Romney mocking Melania at an NRCC dinner snd of course both Ted and Heidi Cruz for not condemning the ad (we know why they didn't condemn it because they approved it if not came up with the idea for it) as sexist, racist, bigoted misogynists?

Just curious.

Not political props? It's worse than that. Trump's only serious rival for the presidency used to be a First Lady. This guy is living in the past.