While courting voters in Wisconsin Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) used strong words for rival Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. He said Trump is “a sniveling coward” who has a problem with women.
DANE, Wis. — Donald Trump’s ability to roil the presidential race with a few swipes of a smartphone was revealed again in Wisconsin. Before a visit to a factory, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) — the only Republican currently stumping here — had to field questions about the week’s second late-night Trump tweet that mocked the senator’s wife, Heidi.
“Our spouses and our children are off bounds,” Cruz said. “It is not acceptable for a big, loud New York bully to attack my wife. It is not acceptable for him to make insults, to send nasty tweets — and I don’t know what he does late at night, but he tends to do these at about 11:30 at night, I assume when his fear is at the highest point.”
The source of Cruz’s ire seemed, as has become Trump’s habit, petty and puerile. Trump, who has no public appearances scheduled until a March 29 rally in nearby Janesville, was angered by a Web ad from the tiny Make America Awesome PAC, allegedly targeted at Mormon voters, that displayed a salacious photo of the mogul’s wife, Melania, from a magazine shoot and warned that she could become first lady unless Utahans caucused for Cruz.
The PAC has no relationship to Cruz, but on Tuesday night, Trump warned that he would “spill the beans” about Heidi Cruz; on Wednesday night he retweeted someone who compared an unflattering photo of Mrs. Cruz to a glamorous one of Mrs. Trump.
It just sounds like locker room talk to me. How unseemly. How ungentlemanly. How rude. How unpresidential.
A PAC seemed to have started off the firestorm of insults. These PACS are really out of control and have been for several decades. If we want to start with campaign reform, then there is one of the places to start. PACs seem to answer to no one. They can do what they want to do with little, if any, accountability.
Congress needs to get off its do-nothing rear and draft some legislation to hold PACs accountable.
What I would have started with is Cruz standing up and saying that, despite the federal laws about contact between candidates and these PACS, he must state that he personally does not approve of anyone using family in the way that this was done. Then, even while not guilty himself, he would offer a gentleman’s apology to Melania Trump. End of discussion.
Sounds reasonable. Now, what would you say to Mr. Trump?
Cruz should punch Trump in the nose.
This is the farce of the Super PAC – they can do the dirty work of a campaign and answers to no one for what is produced. The Super PAC does not even have to report the donors or amount of money they have access to.
Cruz also wants to play on the edge – his daughters have had speaking parts (partisan speaking) in political ads and Heidi is on the campaign trail every day doing political speeches – that opens them up for criticism.
It was a very unflattering photo of Heidi – it is not right – but is it really a big deal? Would it sway one voter?
Another good point.
My concern is those PACs who have no responsibility or accountability.
I don’t want any man as president who has such low regard for women. It sets a tone from top down.
I agree with Wolve on this. An apology for the actions of a PAC that is supporting Cruz (interesting it was reportedly an anti Trump Utah PAC) and disavowel of that PAC’s support, money and effort would have been the proper, gentlemanly thing to do. Trump’s could then have done the same if he even had time to strike back and remember Trump does not have PACs to do his reasonable denial dirty work for him. So in that think we all agree (scary) . As it is, I think the anti-Trmp media are distorting what happened.
Moon, I also agree with you that “I don’t want any man as president who has such low regard for women. It sets a tone from top down.” Can we then also agree that such a rule should also apply to a woman — a woman who supports a pig who abuses women and then uses that support to parlay herself into a Senate seat and Presidental run? Just wondering if any rules around here run both ways.
“A woman who supports a pig” would not make a complete analogy. You are saying that any woman who supported Trump should never hold office.
The correct analogy would be do we support a woman who holds men in such low regard? I wouldn’t want a woman president like that either.
I don’t know anyone who has behaved as nastily towards women as Donald Trump.
The more I think about what you have said, the more offended I get. You are blaming the victim.
I don’t want that crap said on this blog. That is what it is, crap. You certainly don’t know the dynamics of the Clinton marriage and for you to blame her for anything he might have or have not done is simply unacceptable. If Chelsey were running for office, you are the type who would blame her also.
I would vote for a rotten turnip before I would ever cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately, the other side has been offering a bushel of them.
@MoonHowler
Half an answer and half obfuscation. Bill is a pig and Hillary, in addition to all the other things she has been shown to be – is an enabler, who, if she does not encourage his behevior has looked the other way in her own political interest. Sounds like you have a double standard here – no surprise.
@Emma
I am with you on a rotten turnip vote before Hillary — or Sanders for that matter. But, you might agree that for all the bad apples we have to pick from on the Republican side, any one of them is still better than the long term damage that Hillary and Sanders represent.
Blue, actually it was a really poor analogy.
You have no idea what she did or did not do in regards to Bill.
Btw, it should be no surprise when I ask you to leave if you continue to come here and snark at me.
WaPo:
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Wolve’s comment at the top of the thread was spot-on. Cruz should have chewed out the PAC for the nudie pics of Mrs. Trump. But he didn’t. Trump should have let it go. Both of them have shown their colors, and whatever those colors are, they are pretty unsightly.
For the life of me, I can’t understand why the anti-Trump people have gravitated to Cruz, as opposed to Kasich. I think the panic about Trump has so addled the brains of people like Bush and Romney that they have been reduced to slavegirls in Political Insanity’s harem.
Maybe they gravitate to Cruz instead of Kasich because our porous borders, illegal immigration, and the prospect of 100,000 more poorly vetted Middle Eastern refugees in the midst of jihad terrorist attacks have come to the fore as issues for many voters. Kasich sounds as if he wants to erase all borders and let anybody in who wants to come….most likely why Jeb and Lindsay and several others never got any traction. Personally, I think Kasich is a bit loony on the issue of security.
I haven’t heard Kasich advocate anything like that, Wolve, on immigration. You’re making that up.
On security issues, what is it that Kasich has advocated that you find “loony”?
In any event, my question was whey the anti-Trump folks haven’t gravitated toward Kasich, as opposed to Cruz. While I wasn’t specific about it, I was referring to the Romneys, Bushes, Grahams etc. You can’t tell me that Kasich’s views on immigration ( which are not particularly novel – he has only observed the obvious that we aren’t going to deport 10-11million illegals, something that is obvious to most people) are that different from all those tearing their hair out about the possibility of Trump being elected.
John Kasich’s positions on immigration:
Does not support shipping 11M illegal immigrants back to Mexico.
Supports sealing the border with fencing and “drones and sensors”.
Says he is open to a pathway to citizenship, but “doesn’t like it”
Favors a “pause” in resettlement of refugees from the Middle East
Backup references for all at:
http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/John_Kasich_Immigration.htm
Except for position on Middle East refugees. That is from:
http://www.npr.org/2015/11/17/456395261/kasich-reasonable-to-pause-resettlement-of-syrian-refugees
Kasich is smart enough to know that you cannot send 11M illegal immigrants back to Mexico, especially since many of them aren’t even from Mexico.
Imagine the cost! Imagine what it would take to round up everyone. Is it just me or does this seem like how the SS rounded up Jews?