When a campaign runs into trouble, as Ted Cruz’s seems to have, one of the ways to staunch the bleeding is to toss someone overboard in hopes that the circling sharks (i.e. the media and opposing campaigns) will be sated. The Cruz for President Campaign has committed a number of slip ups that has allowed rival campaigns and some in the media to paint it as being dirty and underhanded. These mistakes began with suggesting that Ben Carson was quitting the race when he was not and ended with the accusation that Marco Rubio denigrated the Bible when he had not.
Some have suggested that Cruz is under performing among evangelicals who tend to value personal integrity as much as they do stands on social issues. The man overboard, in this case, is Rick Tyler, Cruz’s now former communications director. Tyler apologized to Rubio before quitting for the Bible smear.
The Rubio campaign is having none of it and why should it? The longer the Cruz campaign can be depicted as dirty and unscrupulous, the better for Rubio, who seems to have acquired a second life thanks to coming in second in South Carolina.
Cruz is going to have to change his strategy and stop going after Rubio. Trump is taking away enough conservatives and evangelicals from Cruz to deny him front runner status.
So, Cruz has to go after Donald Trump, pointing out his various shortcomings in an attempt to start prying away his support.
By any logic, Trump should not be garnering the kind of support he is enjoying, even though his supporters number only a third of the Republican electorate. Trump’s personal life has hardly been an example of propriety.
His past (and some of his present) political positions have not been, strictly speaking, conservative. But Trump is ahead and Cruz and Rubio are eating his dust, at least for now. That situation has to change if Cruz expects to win.
To tear down Trump, Cruz is going to have to play it straight from now on. Or, at the very least, he should not get caught when he feels he has to do something that is less than savory.
