And trust me, this post is coming from a Ted Cruz advocate. A fan. Ted Cruz is “my guy.” That said, I’m starting to seriously question his tactics.
This most recent action leaves me confused and, had I been an Iowa recipient, I would have been, yes, confused, and then red hot.
Look at the photos above and below sent to an Iowan voter. Those other names are neighbors of the person listed at the top.
The mailer said:
RECIPIENT COPY, OFFICIAL PUBLIC RECORD
VOTING VIOLATION
You are receiving this election notice because of low expected voter turnout in your area. Your individual voting history as well as your neighbors’ are public record. Their scores are published below, and many of them will see your score as well. CAUCUS ON MONDAY TO IMPROVE YOUR SCORE and please encourage your neighbors to caucus as well. A follow-up notice may be issued following Monday’s caucuses.
If you look at the photo you can see that those persons listed — real persons whose names were acquired from voter rolls — had their voting habits “graded,” ranging from F to C.
The Cruz campaign has confirmed the existence of these flyers and that they are theirs. Moreover, Ted Cruz says he will apologize to no one for his flyers.
The mailers resemble some kind of official government document and, frankly, they are meant to. Look at the top photo.
It would appear that Iowa’s secretary of state, Paul Pate, is in a tizzy about the mailer, saying that “there is no such thing as an election violation related to frequency of voting.” And correct he is.
I was not a recipient of such a mailer from Ted Cruz. But I can tell you quite honestly what I would have done had I been so. It would be on the order of what I did when the RNC sent me three consecutive envelopes marked on the outside with large red letters indicating FIRST NOTICE, SECOND NOTICE and FINAL NOTICE.
“Notice” for what? Not sending them money, of course. Something I’d done before receiving those rude and disparaging envelopes.
That was the last time I wrote a check to the RNC. With tactics like that they can go to hell.
My first reaction to finding a mailer like that at my house would be roughly the same: blow me. You too can go to hell. No donations, no vote.
You want to insult me — and in my estimation an insult is what you mailed — then you must be sitting in the catbird seat and don’t require my vote. You want to send me a “voting violation“? Eh, not in this life.
You just made it personal. You just named names. Mine. I vote in every election. I do my duty. Though frankly, it’s none of your business how frequently I vote or not.
That’s what I would be thinking had I received such a flyer. And some Iowans do too. We don’t respond very well to threats and embarrassment.
If this is something you, Ted Cruz, think is a spectacular tactic for voter motivation, you apparently don’t know how people function very well.
Let me blunt, because that’s my nature.
Another major cock-up like that, Mr Cruz, and I’ll be saying. . .
. . . to you.
BZ
P.S.
I’d better not be seeing one of those things in my mailbox.
I will say this…I want Trump for my president. Up until Trump entered the race, and for a couple of years now…I was a Ted Cruz supporter. Had Donald not thrown his hat into the ring, I would be yelling Ted Cruz for president. As it is, I would have loved to have seen a Trump/Cruz ticket, let Donald do four years to straighten things out, and hand over the steering wheel to Cruz. Or at the very least, is Teddy does not want to be second string to The Donald, see him get his turn 4 years from now….NOT ANYMORE.
I flinched when it came to the “forgetfulness” of Mr. Cruz in where he got all that money. I rejected those that swore about Ted’s nastiness to others he did not agree with. I overlooked his possible Canadian-ness, as well as some other minor items. But this is the straw, and I am a fallen camel.
I fully expect this from any liberal politician, as their followers would take this seriously, and vote for them if they got this letter. But this nonsense DOES NOT work on conservative citizens. As we conservative types believe strongly in privacy, and moreso in our govt not using our personal and private information for purposes of intimidation or anything else for that matter.
I cringed when obama used the power of the IRS to audit his opponents and anyone else he did not like. I despised the powers that be that went out of their way to target conservative non-profit organizations. This was nothing but our politicians abusing their power to target and destroy those they did not agree with.
Now Ted here goes out and does the same damn thing. He used personal information that should be private, and tries to coerce others into doing something they may or may not want to. This is social engineering at best, and strong-arm bullying at its worst. If Cruz is willing to do this to people that are on his side to some degree, and is not the leader of the country yet, imagine what he would do if he had the full power of the presidency to someone he hated.
This of course, would work…as I would make sure to get out and vote….against anyone who sent me something like this. This is nothing but despicable and goes against EVERYTHING I believe a conservative leader should do.
I understand politics is politics, and try not to take many actions they do to each other personal….but this stinks of facism. I am a grown adult, in a “free” country, and I have rights. Rights to do with them as I please. No one will force me, shame me, or make me do anything I do not want to. I am free to vote as I please, or not at all.
I think Teddy here may be more Canadian then I originally thought…as there is no way he should think this a good idea. We Americans are NOT passive like Canadians. We will go out of our way to do the exact opposite of what those that want to control us tell us to do. We were once tea drinkers but switched to coffee because drinking tea is what the lousy British oppressors did. We drive on the right side of the road, because those that claimed to be our betters, drove on the left side. We do NOT give in to being pressured by someone who wants to rule over us. If Teddy was 100% American, he would know this, and surely not allow anyone in his campaign to do something this despicable.
With that said…I am sad. I believed in him. I thought he truly was different. And I saw a future with him as the occupier of the whitehouse someday…not anymore. He has shown his true colors, and I find he is not any different than the current crop of leaders that I already despise and want to throw out of office. I suppose it’s best I learn this now, and avoid the horrors he would do if given the chance to wield the power of the presidency over me.
This is NOT something I want my president to ever consider as something that is okay to do. And with Ted being as unapologetic as he is over this when it was brought to his attention…well, the heck with him. I want my enemies known to me. Not someone who claims to represent me and tell me he is my friend, only to stick me in the back. I will simply move on and forget he existed. Hopefully the rest of America will too.
BINGO!! As always, you hit this on the head!!
I like many of Ted’s ideas. I like the fact that he pretty much doesn’t care who gets in the way of his politics. I guess I didn’t care until I was on the point of the spear. Everyone fucks up now and then. Sometimes more than “now and then.” But when it comes to knowing how to appeal to your potential supporters, this tactic indicates Ted, or perhaps his staff, is tone deaf. Perhaps it really wasn’t Ted who conjured up this idea. I get that. But upon examination — and ultimately he’s responsible — he should have had the sense to say “well, we screwed the pooch on that one and for those who were insulted, I grandly apologize.”
Teddie doubled down on stupid. To me, that says a lot.
I expected better.
BZ
Dekare, thank you kindly for your extensive thoughts. Thanks for reading and thanks for taking the time to write as you do.
BZ
At one time I leaned toward Ted Cruz as my second choice. I, too, was hopeful about the possiblity of a Trump/Cruz ticket. Then came the eligibility issue and his reply to Neil Cavuto at the debate before this one. He dismissed it in such an offhand manner ” Well, Neil, I am glad we are focusing on the important topics this evening…”
Being qualified as a natural born citizen is a primary and immutable requirement for the highest office in the land. Yet here was Cruz seemingly laughing it off and then citing Trump’s legal team as validation that this was a non issue. Saying under long standing law a child born abroad to a citizen is ‘a natural born citizen’. (Yet he has not, nor has anyone that I have read, actually produced such a law. A citizen, yes, but natural born? Hmm. I do not believe this issue has been settled and quite frankly if he is considered a NBC then one day we could be looking at a child born, for example, in Iran or Russia to an American parent and a foreign parent running for President.)
Anyway, his response struck me as condescending and belittling and honestly and to my surprise, reminded me of ….obama. A bit disdainful and well, a tad supercilious.
Now comes this ‘Shaming’ in Iowa. Feels more like a threat to me. I say it is outrageous and were I to receive one of these ‘letters of shame’ it would certainly motivate me but not in the direction the mailer envisioned.
I wonder. Will Cruz’s people be on hand to give out little letter grades for one to wear after voting?
Ted’s legality as an American citizen isn’t in question. That was a smear tactic. Legally, he’s an American citizen, plan and simple. That was a specious accusation. Mom was born in America. If my mother was on a trip with my father in, say, Canada and mom’s water broke, I would still be an American citizen.
But you agree. This was indeed shaming. You and I don’t respond well to shaming. Bad plan.
BZ
As you know, I live in Texas…
That said; I didn’t support Cruz in the Senatorial primaries but I did vote for him in the general… I didn’t want to, but I did it because his Democratic opponent was a bigger douchebag than Cruz was..
I have not supported Cruz for POTUS because I still feel like he’s a bag of douche water, a previously USED bag…
His place of birth has NEVER been an issue for me, after Obama I wouldn’t care if he were born on the rings of Saturn, I just can’t stand the slimy little SOB…
Trump 2016
After Monday, I’d say the clouds are about to part in a big, BIG way.
I am very curious.
BZ
I will vote Trump, because I want him to really shake up the Washington DC Democrats. He will do this.
So, who will be chosen as the Vice-President candidate?
Cruz? Rubio? Ryan? Gowdy? Rand? Cuban? Perry? Carson?Christie? Palin?
Fiorie? Huckabee?
Or,,,,, the communist Demorats win with Sanders and Hillary???????????????
This is what bothers me when I’m not re-loading,,,,,,,,
Reload away, brother.
BZ
I’m an Iowan who received one of those mailers. It sounds as if you and I have very different policy opinions, but your assessment of how you’d react to that mailer was spot-on my reaction: “You just made it personal. You just named names. Mine. I vote in every election. I do my duty. Though frankly, it’s none of your business how frequently I vote or not.”
It’s appalling to me that the Cruz campaign would publish fabricated voting data about me, my neighbors, and other citizens of the state and mail them to . . . well, whoever they chose to send them to. I’m not privy to who received defamatory information about me from Cruz via the U.S. postal service. That tactic speaks of neither trust, nor reining in government.
Your comments, on the other hand, give me hope about the ability of Americans to find common ground despite varied political philosophies. Thanks for calling “your guy” out on this one.
I’m not the terrible ogre my Leftist buddies make me out to be. I’m just one little old fat guy, Yes, Ted won the Iowa caucuses. But good tactics are still good tactics, and wrong ones, well, they’re just that too.
BZ