Another chapter in the Cruz campaign’s book of dirty tactics

Yesterday Senator Ted Cruz held a press conference where he told media and the public that he had asked for the resignation of his campaign spokesman, Rick Tyler.

This came a day after Tyler shared a video on Facebook and Twitter that falsely depicted Cruz rival Senator Marco Rubio speaking poorly about the Bible.

The video features Rubio running into a Cruz staffer and Cruz’s father Rafael in the lobby of a hotel and sharing a few words. In the video, subtitles show Rubio saying “Got a good book there, not many answers in it.”

However, it quickly came to light that that the subtitles were in fact incorrect. Rubio’s communications director, Alex Conant, tweeted out the same video with what he claims are the correct subtitles. In this video, Rubio says of the Bible, “All the answers are in there.”

Conant said the move by Tyler is yet “another dirty trick” by the Cruz campaign and eventually released the following statement:

Cruz quickly took to the public, saying he had spent the morning investigating the incident before making the decision to ask Tyler to resign.

Cruz told reporters on Monday,

“I have made clear in this campaign we will conduct this campaign with the very highest standards and integrity…This was a grave error of judgment. It turned out the news story he sent around was false but I’ll tell you, even if it was true, we are not a campaign that is going to question the faith of another candidate.”

This comes one day before the Nevada caucus and after a number of other allegations that the Cruz campaign is playing dirty.

Just days before the Iowa caucuses, the Cruz camp faced criticism after sending a mailer telling voters to get to the polls because they had committed voting violations. The mailer, aimed at driving more Iowans to the caucuses for Cruz, falsely told recipients they needed to caucus to improve their scores. Cruz campaign spokeswoman Alice Stewart confirmed the mailer was in fact from their campaign. Read the mailer in its entirety:

“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."

Iowa Secretary of State was notified of this false mailer and immediately released a statement blasting Cruz and his campaign for the misleading tactic:

“Accusing citizens of Iowa of a ‘voting violation’ based on Iowa Caucus participation, or lack thereof, is false representation of an official act. There is no such thing as an election violation related to frequency of voting. Any insinuation or statement to the contrary is wrong and I believe it is not in keeping in the spirit of the Iowa Caucuses.”

The heat Cruz faced from the mailer did not deter Iowans from caucusing for him on February 1. Cruz won Iowa with 27.6 percent of the votes (three full points above second place finisher Donald Trump.

That said, there were allegations that Cruz won Iowa with, yep — you guessed it, more shady tactics when Cruz grassroots leaders told caucus-goers not to vote for Dr. Ben Carson, as he would be dropping out of the race immediately following the Iowa caucuses. Many have claimed this led to a number of would-be Carson supporters caucusing instead for Cruz. Breitbart reported that Cruz grassroots leaders received voicemails from staff detailing Carson’s reports of dropping out.

Transcript:

“…from the Ted Cruz campaign, calling to get to a precinct captain, and it has just been announced that Ben Carson is taking a leave of absence from the campaign trail, so it is very important that you tell any Ben Carson voters that for tonight, uh, that they not waste a vote on Ben Carson, and vote for Ted Cruz. He is taking a leave of absence from his campaign. All right? Thank you. Bye.”

Immediately following the caucuses, Donald Trump came out harshly against Cruz in one of his usual twitter rants, accusing Cruz of stealing Iowa.

Note: don’t even get me started on the fact that a frontrunner for the nomination for PRESIDENT can tweet stuff out like this and still be a frontrunner.

Rick Tyler’s fiasco is just another chapter in the book of the Cruz campaign’s dirty campaign tricks, and it seems that campaign manager Jeff Roe is no stranger to books like this, as this isn’t the first time Roe has been accused of dirty tactics. Roe faced accusations when he worked on a congressional campaign in Missouri in 2010.

Roe faced claims that in the final days before the election, a fraudulent email was sent claiming to be from the campaign’s Democratic congressional opponent, Scott Eckersley. The email, sent to news organizations, claimed the candidate would be suspending his campaign for personal reasons. Roe’s firm was working for Republican candidate Billy Long. Eckersley later said, “You know this is dirty politics. This is Jeff Roe-style management. That’s who Billy’s retained. That’s who he writes the big checks to.”

For me, it’s too many coincidences to continue to peg as accidents in a campaign. These chapters point in one direction — a shady campaign. And from what’s been reported about Cruz’s coworkers’ opinions, a shady candidate.

With a “racist, sexist demagogue” as the GOP frontrunner, it’s no surprise Americans aren’t taking notice of the Cruz campaign shady tactics.

Although the resignation of Rick Tyler came just one day before Nevada’s GOP caucus, Cruz is polling second in Nevada…so only time will tell on whether this will mean anything when voters convene tonight.