Trump takes aim at Cruz before GOP debate

Ted Cruz appears at an Iowa summit hosted by a major evangelical group in July. The criticisms, according to the Times, were leveled against front-runners Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson.

Cruz has done little to woo the Republicans he used as his bogeyman: He has raised the lion’s share of his money far from the New York-to-Washington corridor, raced to the party’s right flank on every issue of the day, and campaigned loudly on the polarizing social issues that one well-placed Republican said puts some contributors permanently out of reach.

Suddenly GOP leaders have a tiger named Trump by the tail and don’t quite seem to know how to handle it. The irony is that they have only themselves to blame. “If they both end up dead, it becomes a suicide pact”.

Rubio, the Miami senator who won the backing of influential billionaire Paul Singer, is emerging as something of an establishment darling.

No wonder establishment Republicans are upset with Trump.

Republican presidential contender Donald Trump said his call to ban Muslims from entering the US sparked a useful discussion about radicalism within that community, and he’s not daunted by polls showing most Americans oppose the idea.

Cue the ramped-up hostilities. Look, I built a phenomenal business, I’m worth many, many billions of dollars, I have some of the greatest assets anywhere in the world. “That’s just a part of the record; it’s nothing personal”.

Cruz responded to this jab within hours.

“He’s not ready to be president, he’s a first-term USA senator, we just went through that”, Christie said. No one else makes it into double-digits.

And in this case? Trump has a 3-point edge over Cruz among those who say they will “probably” attend.

Trippi would know. It was precisely that scenario that played out in the 2004 Democratic Party primaries, when negative campaigning between perceived frontrunners Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt eroded enough support from either side that John Kerry and John Edwards ascended instead.

Trippi was Dean’s campaign manager at the time and learned a lesson then. “I was not supposed to be here (in this race this late)”, Donald Trump said. One reason Trump has been able to maintain an overall lead in most national polls since last summer is that, as Ron Brownstein has pointed out, blue-collar workers have coalesced around him, while white-collar workers with at least a college degree have split their support among several candidates.

By the same token, Trump’s attacks on Carson may have only bolstered Cruz’s candidacy. McConnell denied that. Trump suggested that Cruz’s approach would impair his effectiveness.

Regardless of how the politics of 2016 were shaping up, that arrangement was likely to give a strong conservative like Ted Cruz an important early boost – and a whole bunch of delegates. I believe gravity will bring both of those campaigns down.

But perhaps the most intriguing factor contributing to Cruz’s success is Trump’s overt extremism. If he wins there, he goes into New Hampshire with low stakes. “They want each other to win”.

Philip Ammerman, a political strategist and vice-president of Navigator Consulting, attended Princeton University with Cruz.

In states like Iowa and South Carolina, Cruz has held a massive event with thousands of supporters in attendance called the “Rally for Religious Liberty”.

Nor does he recall much about Cruz being “unlikable”. “That’s the problem with Ted”, he said. “He’s certainly not the ogre he’s made out to be now”. He’s also been campaigning consistently in the South. If Cruz remains smart, he will continue to praise Trump. Now, I will see whether or not I am being treated fairly.