Ted Cruz’s campaign sent out mailers to some Iowa voters on Friday which have left many infuriated.
It was a large card printed with the words “ELECTION ALERT” “VOTER VIOLATION” “PUBLIC RECORD” “FURTHER ACTION NEEDED.” On the reverse was printed “VOTING VIOLATION” and this text that followed:
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.
It looked like this:
One man who was livid when his wife received this — and who then said this was enough to push him to caucus for Marco Rubio — tweeted this:
@rumpfshaker those are legitimately my next door neighbors
— Tom Hinkeldey (@TomAhink) January 30, 2016
While the names printed on the card were already on the public record, Iowa voters were stunned that the above-board Cruz campaign would use such sketchy tactics to entice caucus-goers. Even the blog Red State, which has been very supportive of Ted Cruz, wrote “this is not how you go about convincing people and persuading them. This is a Donald Trump tactic and Cruz’s team should know better.” And Powerline took the campaign to task as well, using a football metaphor: “The mailing plays straight into the hands of Trump, who says that Cruz is a nasty guy (he has never struck me as nasty), and of Rubio, who comes across in public as less abrasive. If this is Cruz’s vaunted ground game in action, it should be penalized 15 yards.”
Despite the fact that many Cruz supporters took to social media to declare the cards a hoax, or Photoshopped, the campaign did confirm that yes, the cards were theirs, and they did send them out. Good on them for that — at least they didn’t further spin the Photoshop conspiracy, or rely on the old worn out lie “we were hacked!”
Conservative blogger D. Hawkins pointed out that this was not the first time this kind of shenanigan has been pulled. MoveOn.org also performed the same stunt in its mailers promoting Obama in 2012.
MoveOn did similar voter-shaming mailers in 2012. I knew it seemed familiar. @drawandstrike @redsteeze @rumpfshaker pic.twitter.com/8ifIvm0dLL
— Marcus Hawkins (@HawkinsUSA) January 30, 2016
Should Cruz’s campaign come to a screeching halt due to one over-the-top mailer? No, those whose main concern is getting a Constitutional conservative in the White House should not scratch Cruz’s name from their dance card. And certainly this pales in comparison with the childish tantrums and ad hominem attacks from the Trump camp. But the Cruz campaign needs to scramble to set things aright with the voters of Iowa.
This MO is not new. From October 2012…
“The best experiment was done in Michigan in 2006 before the GOP primary — these two guys from Yale and one of their post-docs and this crazy direct-mail guy from East Lansing who sent out a series of letters before the election, and one of them said something like, “Dear Ann, your history as a voter is a publicly available document through the Board of Elections; here is your history as a voter. You did not vote in the mayoral election, you did not vote in the school board, and here are your neighbors’ history and whether they voted. . . . There is another election coming up and we’ll follow up with an update after the election.” “
I fully expect people I disagree with to do stupid stuff, but, for crying out loud, can’t the people I like stop doing stupid stuff…at least for a while?
Stupidity cannot be fixed Joe. That is why liberal ideas always fail. This mailer seems more a sign of desperation than a thought out strategy.
The Cruz Campaign has confirmed they will NOT apologize for this action.
FWIW, they apparrently figured, “it worked well in Alaska, we might as well try it here”
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/01/30/unbelievable-ted-cruz-campaign-sends-out-personal-shaming-letters-to-iowa-voters/
To me, it’s NOT “shaming.”
It’s outright INTIMIDATION.
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