Cruz cheated?

[Bobcat1]

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Trump thinks so.....

[BS Wildcats]

Trump just needs to take his medicine.

[Hagar]

53 minutes ago, BS Wildcats said:

Trump just needs to take his medicine.

Amen BSW.  I've been watching him make a fool of himself (IMO) on the news this evening.  Acting like a spoil brat.  Politics never cease to amaze me.  

[tvc184]

I saw Trump on the television tonight say that Carson was a great guy and something like an honorable man and was cheated and blah blah blah.

A couple of months ago he was calling Carson a liar because in his book (from several years ago) he was claiming to have a bad temper and had overcome it. Trump said that Carson cannot be trusted.

Trump never tried to slam Cruz early when Trump was beating up on everyone else. He said that he might choose Cruz for his VP. Then Cruz came up in the polls and a couple of weeks ago Trump called him stupid. Now he thinks that the Iowa Republican caucus should take all of Cruz's votes away.... giving Trump the win.

Anyone else see a pattern in this?

[PN-G bamatex]

I hate Donald Trump. I really hate Donald Trump. The few political Facebook posts I've made in the course of this primary have been anti-Trump. The man's inconsistent and, in my opinion, certifiable. And for that reason, it really, really gets under my skin that I have to say this, but....

In this one case, Donald Trump's right. He's exaggerating - what Ted Cruz's campaign did wasn't "cheating" per se, but it was patently dishonest, and Trump is right to call him on it.

All the photographic evidence is out there. If you haven't seen it, you can find it at the link below:

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Cruz's campaign took a CNN headline and misconstrued it in a way that implied Carson was getting ready to drop out of the race in an official campaign memo sent to all registered Cruz supporters in Iowa. I've seen a few reports (none of which are cited in the article linked to above) that contained statements from Iowa caucus-goers to the effect that Cruz representatives verbally informed Carson supporters that Carson would drop out of the race after Iowa and urged them to reconsider voting for Cruz on those grounds, though I'm skeptical of the veracity of those reports given that similar evidence hasn't been incorporated in the reports of more notable news sources.

One of Cruz's PR officials, a man named Dan Gabriel (who himself is a suspect character in my opinion), took it a step further in claiming on his personal Twitter account that he had confirmed the rumor with a Carson campaign insider. Gabriel has since deleted the tweet, but he failed to do so before screenshots were taken. In subsequent tweets, he tried to play it off as though the Trump campaign had started the Carson rumor. Despite the explicit evidence to the contrary, he's stuck to that narrative. There's no sign that the Cruz campaign has taken any steps to distance itself from Gabriel, to reprimand Gabriel or even to quiet Gabriel's dishonest attempt at blame-shifting.

Having been around campaigns for a while now, one thing I've learned is that you can get a strong sense for the type of person a candidate is by the type of people he puts on his campaign staff. This isn't the first time I've seen a high-ranking Cruz campaign official do something dishonest. One of Cruz's high-ranking millennial outreach and fundraising officials was a student in my section at UT Law last semester, and without going into more detail than I should, was forced to depart from the law school under less than amicable circumstances. The brief glimpse into the inner workings of the Cruz campaign he offered to myself and other conservatives at this law school was, if anything, alarming to all of us. I have yet to see anything of a similar nature or which invokes the same kind of concerns through my contacts in the Rubio, Sanders or (now suspended) Paul campaigns. To be totally frank, I have friends in the Hilary campaign, and they haven't sent this many shivers up my spine.

Take this as a friendly word of advice from a fellow Southeast Texas native with a little insider knowledge: it would be wise to take the skeptic's approach in assessing Ted Cruz as a presidential candidate.

[shovel]

While you are blasting the Cruz campaign,  add Rubio's to the list. They were doing the same. The bottom line is the original misinformation or disinformation came from CNN. They all jumped on it and hurt Dr Carson's feelings. Trump is being a sore loser and slinging crap to see if it will stick. I don't know which bothers me more; The Republicans cannibalizing each other or the Democrats candidates buttering up to Hillary. I'm beginning to tire of the sideshows.

[Hagar]

19 hours ago, BS Wildcats said:

 

[Hagar]

Guess we still have a problem with our Quote feature.  Probably designed by the same company that makes our voting machines.  

Back to topic, I'm not familiar with all that happened but I am use to losing Politicians blaming everyone but themselves.  Today on the news, the info on Carson was attributed to a tweet from the Hillery campaign.  I don't Tweety, since I always felt like Sylvester was not the bad guy he was portrayed to be.  I do believe that anything posted on Twitter, Facebook, or other social medias should be taken with a Box of salt. 

[PN-G bamatex]

4 hours ago, shovel said:

While you are blasting the Cruz campaign,  add Rubio's to the list. They were doing the same. The bottom line is the original misinformation or disinformation came from CNN. They all jumped on it and hurt Dr Carson's feelings. Trump is being a sore loser and slinging crap to see if it will stick. I don't know which bothers me more; The Republicans cannibalizing each other or the Democrats candidates buttering up to Hillary. I'm beginning to tire of the sideshows.

You know, I have to admit, you stumped me for a moment with that accusation. I hadn't seen anything about anyone in the Rubio campaign pushing the narrative that Carson was dropping out, and it's rare that things like that elude my attention. Finally, after three or four Google searches, I came up with a single hit.

One person put out a tweet saying that the Rubio campaign was pushing the narrative that Carson was dropping out. That person's name is Conrad Close. He's a freshman at Georgia Southern University, fresh out of a homeschooling program and looks like he couldn't be more than fifteen years old. His sole connection to the Rubio campaign is that he got one of the little freeware "I'm Voting Rubio" graphics off the internet and incorporated it into this profile picture on Twitter. You can see his Twitter profile here:

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And the article that picked up on his tweet can be found here:

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He later deleted the tweet, and explained that he was nowhere near Iowa nor had any firsthand information from the Rubio campaign indicating that they believed Carson would drop out or that they wished to disseminate information to that effect. Nothing I can find suggests he's actually involved in the Rubio campaign in any way or even that he's anything more than just your average, casual Rubio supporter.

Where did he get the idea that Rubio was pushing that narrative, you ask? He says he thought he saw it somewhere on Twitter. After doing some digging on Twitter, I personally can't find anything he could have gotten that idea from, so I'm left to believe the kid misread something. It's worth pointing out, on that note, that there's no Rubio campaign memo or official Rubio campaign literature of any kind suggesting that the Rubio campaign wanted to spread the belief that Carson was dropping out, unlike Cruz, whose campaign did in fact put out just such a memo.

The only reason this is even notable right now is that one of the conservative grassroots media orgs picked up the kid's tweet and ran with it, and that drew attention from Rush Limbaugh on air, who apparently didn't do any real fact-checking first.

So I ask you, what's more concerning? Some homeschooled kid in Swainsboro, Georgia starting a rumor based on something he misunderstood from out there in the Twitterverse, or a presidential campaign putting out a dishonest memo about a rival presidential candidate to all of its supporters and a high-ranking, professional PR advisor to that same campaign tweeting an overt lie, and then trying to cover up that lie by lying again to claim that the first lie was told by a separate rival presidential candidate? I think we both know the answer to that.

[Hagar]

Well French fried dog farts PNG tex.  Seems you hate Donald Trump as much as I like Cruz.  And sadly, I've become a fan of yours, so now I have to reevaluate my choices.  Dadgum you for complicating my life about a subject (politics) I once found interesting but now disdain lol.  I'm not concerned that Cruz may have some questionable folks, since building a large organization for a presidential election makes that very possible.  As for as Gabriel, I hope Cruz is doing an internal investigation into the matter and will release the results/actions in the very near future.  If not, he may be more of a politician than I first thought.  

[Mr.Green Jeans]

This may end up being a bigger story as time goes on.

[shovel]

10 hours ago, PN-G bamatex said:

You know, I have to admit, you stumped me for a moment with that accusation. I hadn't seen anything about anyone in the Rubio campaign pushing the narrative that Carson was dropping out, and it's rare that things like that elude my attention. Finally, after three or four Google searches, I came up with a single hit.

One person put out a tweet saying that the Rubio campaign was pushing the narrative that Carson was dropping out. That person's name is Conrad Close. He's a freshman at Georgia Southern University, fresh out of a homeschooling program and looks like he couldn't be more than fifteen years old. His sole connection to the Rubio campaign is that he got one of the little freeware "I'm Voting Rubio" graphics off the internet and incorporated it into this profile picture on Twitter. You can see his Twitter profile here:

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And the article that picked up on his tweet can be found here:

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He later deleted the tweet, and explained that he was nowhere near Iowa nor had any firsthand information from the Rubio campaign indicating that they believed Carson would drop out or that they wished to disseminate information to that effect. Nothing I can find suggests he's actually involved in the Rubio campaign in any way or even that he's anything more than just your average, casual Rubio supporter.

Where did he get the idea that Rubio was pushing that narrative, you ask? He says he thought he saw it somewhere on Twitter. After doing some digging on Twitter, I personally can't find anything he could have gotten that idea from, so I'm left to believe the kid misread something. It's worth pointing out, on that note, that there's no Rubio campaign memo or official Rubio campaign literature of any kind suggesting that the Rubio campaign wanted to spread the belief that Carson was dropping out, unlike Cruz, whose campaign did in fact put out just such a memo.

The only reason this is even notable right now is that one of the conservative grassroots media orgs picked up the kid's tweet and ran with it, and that drew attention from Rush Limbaugh on air, who apparently didn't do any real fact-checking first.

So I ask you, what's more concerning? Some homeschooled kid in Swainsboro, Georgia starting a rumor based on something he misunderstood from out there in the Twitterverse, or a presidential campaign putting out a dishonest memo about a rival presidential candidate to all of its supporters and a high-ranking, professional PR advisor to that same campaign tweeting an overt lie, and then trying to cover up that lie by lying again to claim that the first lie was told by a separate rival presidential candidate? I think we both know the answer to that.

Wow! I know not to believe EVERYTHING that I read on the Internet,  but now I have to question what I hear on Limbaugh? Say it ain't so, my burnt-orange bro! Not el rushbo!

Kinda figures... Thanks for clearing that up. I still blame CNN for the crap storm and trying to make news instead of reporting it. Let's see what happens next in New Hampshire. 

 

[RETIREDFAN1]

"media" making a mountain out of a molehill for ratings.......all this is, nothing more......

[77]

Media also uses this situation to help draw attention from their girl Hill! 

[RETIREDFAN1]

and from their guy rubio.....

[LumRaiderFan]

1 hour ago, 77 said:

Media also uses this situation to help draw attention from their girl Hill! 

Yep

[PAMFAM10]

keep trusting these politicians they'll keep letting you down.

[Hagar]

1 hour ago, PAMFAM10 said:

keep trusting these politicians they'll keep letting you down.

Right on the money PF10.  

And this would be a good time to share with y'all one of my favorite quotes of Will Rogers.  "The more you observe politics, the more you've got to admit that each party is worse than the other."

[PAMFAM10]

since George Washington on down. politicians will always be politicians first. they tell you what you want to hear to get your vote.  They have campaign people telling the exactly what to say what to wear how to dress etc. how can you trust someone who doesn't even think for themselves. 

[LumRaiderFan]

2 hours ago, PAMFAM10 said:

 

10 minutes ago, PAMFAM10 said:

since George Washington on down. politicians will always be politicians first. they tell you what you want to hear to get your vote.  They have campaign people telling the exactly what to say what to wear how to dress etc. how can you trust someone who doesn't even think for themselves. 

Don't listen to what they say...pay attention to what they do.

Too many folks don't pay attention until the debates and are swayed simply by words.

That's how Obama fooled so many folks.

[PhatMack19]

 

 

[Mr.Green Jeans]

It does not help to have porn stars in your political ads.

[tvc184]

34 minutes ago, Mr.Green Jeans said:

It does not help to have porn stars in your political ads.

Again, what will it hurt? 

When discovered, the ad was pulled. You have to wonder about someone that digs into actor's backgrounds in a political ad to try to find some dirt on the actor. 

I wonder what would happen if we vetted every single staffer or other person involved in any manner in all people's campaigns. Out of the thousands of people working on the Bernie, Hillary, Trump, Cruz, Rubio, et al., campaigns, I wonder if any have dirt in their past. Care to take any wild shot at it?

I think anyone supporting Cruz (yet again) will not be turned away because an actor hired at random was in soft porn movies. If they find out that she was hired because Cruz was having an affair with her, his future in almost any political nature is over. Merely pointing out that she was in some suggestive movies is meaningless to about 99.9% of voters except ones that will not vote for him anyway. Look what happened to Bill Clinton's support when he finally admitted that he had oral sex from a staffer inside of his residence while he was the president. 

[PN-G bamatex]

The porn star thing is, in my opinion, just plain funny. You have to acknowledge the humorous irony in a porn star appearing in a prominent commercial for one of the leading evangelical candidates in the presidential race.

As an indicator of the kind of candidate Cruz is, though, I don't find it that substantive. The ad was probably proposed by some firm of advertising consultants, approved by the Cruz PR staff, and then contracted out by the ad firm to a studio to make, which contracted with talent agencies to find actors. The Cruz campaign itself was more than likely three degrees of separation removed from the screening process for actors and actresses.

That said, I've said in this thread before and will repeat now my reservations about the Cruz campaign. I know staff for the Cruz, Rubio, Sanders, Clinton and now defunct Paul campaigns very well. I consider some of them dear friends, and I consider some of the others to be the kind of people that are exactly what's wrong with American politics. With regard to that latter group of people, I don't believe the Cruz campaign has a monopoly, but I believe it has more than its fair share of the market.

[Mr.Green Jeans]

If Trump wins South Carolina he may well run the table.