Thread: This Week in Shameless Ted Cruz Trickery

Dirty Tricks February 19, 2016 5:37 pm
This Week in Shameless Ted Cruz Trickery

In the land of shady politics and underhanded plots, Ted Cruz is a natural-born citizen.
by Tina Nguyen

For political watchers eagerly anticipating another South Carolina primary filled with campaign subterfuge, the last week did not disappoint. That’s largely thanks to the efforts of one candidate in particular, Ted Cruz, who rose to meet the state’s well-deserved reputation for political skulduggery with all the glee befitting a man whose campaign mailed fake checks to voters and spread false rumors during the Iowa caucuses that Ben Carson was dropping out of the race.

Because it’s gotten hard to keep track of all of Cruz’s “dirty tricks,” we’ve collected the seven most egregious examples in the past seven days leading up to Saturday’s primary. Vote your heart out, South Carolina.

1. The Cruz campaign releases a Photoshopped image of Rubio and Obama shaking hands

No one in the G.O.P. field wants to be photographed with Barack Obama, much less photographed shaking his hand while smiling. Yet that is exactly what Marco Rubio appears to be doing in a Photoshopped image that the Cruz campaign displayed on an anti-Rubio Web site this week, alongside a caption accusing him of supporting three of Obama’s trade deals.

After his team insisted at first that the photo was authentic, Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler shrugged off the apoplectic Rubio campaign. “If Rubio has a better picture of him shaking hands with Barack Obama, I'm happy to swap it out,” he told CNN Thursday.

2. Voters receive Spanish-language robocall claiming Rubio supports amnesty

Over the last week, voters in South Carolina received a robocall, recorded in Spanish, that targeted Rubio for allegedly supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants. Approximately 5 percent of South Carolinians are Hispanic, and only 72 percent of them speak Spanish at home, suggesting that the call was designed as much for its dog-whistle effect as the substance of the attack. As the Huffington Post noted, the woman on the recording heavily emphasizes the words “Marco Rubio,” “amnistía,” and “inmigración ilegal,” words that an English-speaking Republican would grasp immediately. “The recording is most likely an effort to make non-Spanish-speaking voters believe that Rubio is calling Hispanics and promising amnesty,” reporter Igor Bobic speculated.

The Cruz campaign denied that they were behind the call, which emphasized that Cruz, unlike Rubio, was against amnesty.

3. Another pro-Cruz robocall slams Trump for speaking out against the Confederate Flag

“Put it in a museum, let it go,” the voice of Donald Trump says in another robocall voters are receiving in South Carolina, The Post and Courier reported Friday. “That’s Donald Trump supporting Nikki Haley removing the battle flag from the Confederate memorial in Columbia,” the pre-recorded message then says, adding that people should keep their opinions to themselves. “Trump talks about our flag like it’s a social disease.”

The Courageous Conservative Political Action Committee, the pro-Cruz super-PAC behind the call, provoked a swift rebuke from a Trump spokesman, who called it “the same old trash and more signs of desperation.” The Cruz campaign has yet to comment.

4. A fake Facebook profile for Trey Gowdy renounces Rubio and endorses Cruz

South Carolina congressman Trey Gowdy, who has endorsed Rubio, was understandably ticked off when a Facebook account called “Trey Gowdy Prayers” posted that his endorsement was a “grave mistake,” accusing Rubio of lacking “integrity, intillect [sic], and foresight,” and endorsing Cruz instead. “The truth actually matters to me and to all South Carolinians,” Gowdy said in a statement Tuesday. “Unfortunately it appears that the campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz may not place the same value on waging a contest based on the truth and facts.”

The Cruz campaign immediately denounced the ad as “deplorable” and claimed they “had absolutely nothing to do with this fraudulent Facebook post.”

5. A pro-Cruz ad suggests Rubio bears responsibility for a terrorist attack

At least one attack was so deplorable that South Carolina television stations decided not to air it. That ad, produced by a pro-Cruz super-PAC, implied that Rubio’s immigration record—including alleged support for “sanctuary cities”—bore responsibility for the mass shooting in San Bernardino last December. The PAC in question said they had no idea why the stations had pulled the ads, as it had “aired statewide on both television and digital in Iowa with no objection, receiving hundreds of thousands of views on digital.”

6. Another pro-Cruz ad incites the threat of a lawsuit

Earlier this week, Donald Trump actually threatened to sue Cruz for implying that he was pro-choice in an ad airing in South Carolina. Cruz—who, to be fair, used footage of Trump himself saying 15 years ago that he was pro-choice, before he allegedly changed his mind—welcomed the threat, saying that he looked forward to taking Trump’s deposition.

But God forbid that someone do the same to Cruz. According to Politico, his campaign recently sent a complaint to South Carolina television stations asking them to stop airing a super-PAC-funded ad portraying Cruz as “weak” on national security and immigration, saying that the stations were legally liable for making a “flatly false factual claim.” American Future Fund, the PAC that ran the ad, released a statement pointing out the irony of Cruz complaining on the very same day he dismissed Trump’s own objections.

7. Ted Cruz pretends he can speak Spanish

Once upon a time—as recently as a year ago—Cruz was open about his inability to speak Spanish, even gaining a modicum of sympathy after Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin attempted to goad him into speaking en español. But apparently, Cruz has the unusual ability to become fully fluent only when Marco Rubio calls him out on the debate stage, as he did last Saturday.

Cruz memorizing just the right amount of Spanish phrases might be the biggest dirty trick of all.

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/...a-dirty-tricks

One of the news pundits noted that Cruz spoke Spanish in the debate without any American accent. That usually means you are very fluent in Spanish. So did he lie about not knowing Spanish and Rubio tricked him in the debate into proving he was a fluent Spanish-speaker on LIVE TV before millions of voters? It would seem so.

trickster for sure, but there's nothing tricky or untrue about number 2.

Originally Posted by realbsball

trickster for sure, but there's nothing tricky or untrue about number 2.

I don't really see much of anything here that is worthy of mention.

1. Who cares. Politicians run around all the time shaking hands with each other. Yep, I suppose there are many Republicans that have shaken the hand of Obama. Plus, has it been undeniably proven that the picture was a photoshopped image?

2. Rubio does support amnesty.

3. Nothing unusual here. Cruz has no problem with the Confederate flag being flown and Trump does. Where is the trickery?

4. It has not been proven that the Cruz campaign had anything to do with this. Even Trey Gowdy has stopped speaking about it after the Cruz campaign denial.

5. Nothing unusual here. I don't think it's a stretch to make such an implication.

6. Okay, so Trump and Cruz don't like things being said about them. One complains .. the other complains .... tit for tat ....... who really cares? Nothing even remotely tricky here.

7. Gee-whiz, now I've heard it all.

This whole article stinks of someone (Vanity Fair) attempting to manufacture controversy where there is none.