As you can see from the video above, which Cruz has been sending around to justify his "New York values" comment, he's not going to curl up in a ball and whine the way the other Republican commander-in-chief wannabes have when Herr Trumpf looked at them crosseyed. As Fox's Chad Pergram pointed out on twitter yesterday, when Cruz was rescued from a stalled elevator in South Carolina Saturday morning, he emerged asking "Who put Donald Trump in charge of the elevators?" That may have been a comment on Trump trying to harm him or a comment on the shoddy workmanship Trump projects are so infamous for worldwide. But Cruz's attack, vicious as it might be in Republicanland, is pretty much water off a duck's back to Trumpf fans who don't care what he said in an interview in 1999. They're looking for a fuehrer, a caudillo... end of story.This morning, Herr was on ABC's This Week, taking pot shots at Cruz and pontificating about how little chance he has to win, also calling him "a nasty guy... Nobody likes him. Nobody in Congress likes him. Nobody likes him anywhere once they get to know him. He's a very... he's got an edge that's not good. You can't make deals with people like that and it's not a good thing. It's not a good thing for the country. Very nasty guy... Oh, he's a total hypocrite. How about his fundraising and how about when he does his personal financial disclosure form, and he doesn't put on that he's borrowing money from Goldman Sachs and then today it comes out that he's also borrowing money from Citi Bank and he doesn't list it. You know why? He wants to look like Robin Hood. That he's the one protecting the people from the banks while he's actually borrowing money and personally guaranteeing it and not disclosing it, which is illegal."He added that "if you look at the polls I'm leading Ted Cruz by a lot. He even lied about that. You know he got up and said, 'Well the polls.' Well the polls are showing that I'm the one that's on the upswing. He's the one on the downswing. A big downswing."But none of that will stop Cruz from trying to re-define Trumpf as "the other," not one of us (meaning not a real conservative or, at least in Iowa and South Carolina, not among "the people of God"). He's not talking about how much he likes and respects and admires Herr Trumpf any longer. He knows Trumpf is what's standing in the way of him and the White House. And he knows what kind of a welcome he'd get when he slinks back, vanquished by the clown, into the Senate. Saturday, Trumpf was attacking Cruz in South Carolina but the audience didn't want any of it-- and booed Trumpf loudly. At least no one boos Trumpf on Twitter, his favorite toy:The ole strategy of not alienating the Trumpists so that after Herr imploded they'd eventually come over and vote Cruz, seems to be sitting on the smoking garbage heap of history now. Cruz has no choice but to batter Trumpf's brains out or have his own battered out-- unless he wants to come off looking like a girly-man that way Jeb Bush does. Over the last few days the Cruz surrogates have been out in force, spreading their poison far and wide.
“If Donald wants to have honest, open policy contrasts, we’re ready for that,” campaign chairman Chad Sweet said. “If, on the other hand, he’s going to engage in discussions over nonsensical issues, over birther issues or who’s the real evangelical-- which, by the way, someone from his background should be careful about questioning the faith of our candidate,” something Trump has also done recently.Asked what he meant by Trump’s “background,” Sweet continued, referencing a Trump appearance at a cattle call in Iowa last summer. “I think it’s interesting that Trump … basically said at [a] family values forum he’s never asked for forgiveness, but yet he is Christian. I would ask most Christians the question, ‘What is the first thing you do to become a Christian?’ Christians know what the answer to that question is.”Charlie Condon, the former attorney general of South Carolina and a newly minted surrogate, was more pointed in discussing Trump’s “background,” a preview of the potentially nasty nature of the new Cruz-Trump dynamic.“A thrice-married man is going to come into South Carolina expecting to be the Republican nominee?” Condon asked incredulously. “He’s pro-choice. He’s pro- gay marriage. He’s against traditional values. He’s New York, and he’s got to talk about that.”
Yesterday Trumpf suggested, via twitter, that his fans read a meandering and unfocused column by Wall Street Journal fossil Peggy Noonan, mostly because of this slam at Cruz: "It matters what people think of you. It’s important that people have a high opinion of your essential integrity, trustworthiness and good faith. It matters that they like you. Mr. Cruz, when challenged by Mr. Trump, could have used some backup from prominent Republicans, but they didn’t throw him a lifeline. John McCain: 'I am not a constitutional scholar on that, but I think it’s worth looking into.' You know why Mr. Cruz had no backup? Because almost no one who works with him likes him. They haven’t experienced him as a trustworthy person of good faith. They waited, as people do, for a chance to hurt him, and when they got it they did."Trumpf is being inadvertently helped by the hapless Rubio, who is still stomping his high-heeled booties and punching up towards Cruz, even if he's now in the Christie/Jebster league. After the Thursday debate he was on Fox and Friends, his message that Iowans can't trust Cruz because he's a sneaky, unreliable flip-flopper without a moral compass to guide him, who has gone back and forth on issues of great import to them, like ethanol subsidies, crop insurance and trade policies. "He campaigns as a consistent conservative. The only thing consistent is the consistent political calculation that 'I’m going to change my position if it helps me politically in a given moment.'" Huckabee, clearly running for a post in a Trumpf Administration is also attacking Cruz. "Look," he told the media, "if you want to talk about candidates who've switched positions, you've got a bunch of them out there who've changed on the Trans Pacific Partnership, and on ethanol, and on foreign policy. Donald Trump's positions, if they've changed, have changed over the last 15 years; not the last 15 minutes." Trumpf must have been jumping up and down and barking like a trained seal about get be thrown a smelt.
