by Andrew Kreig
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz seemed poised for victory
in the Iowa caucuses over most of the past month but has suffered tough
counterattacks from critics within his party at the worst possible time
for him.
As often happens in presidential politics, Cruz's difficulties arose from rivals in his own party.
Setbacks cascaded just as he began leading several polls beginning in
December for the first national contest, the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1.
Cruz's momentum in Iowa is fueled by its strong base of evangelical
Christians and tea party enthusiasts, along with his other logistical
advantages over rivals. These include Cruz's unusually strong and
controversial initiative to use data harvested from Facebook users to
target them with pinpoint precision.
But a cascade pf sudden attacks during recent days are hurting Cruz
and could doom his candidacy because of the primary calendar, which
magnifies the importance of a few states in ways especially harmful to
the Texas senator if he slips in Iowa.
In fact, the Trump ascendancy in recent days arguably represents the
most astonishing reversal of fortune among presidential candidates in
modern history during a two-week period.
Today's column provides an overview of these developments, which are
explored more fully in a series to be published here over the next few
days. Topics include:
- GOP fears of a Trump nomination, illustrated by establishment attack on Trump during the Jan. 12 party-vetted GOP reply to President Obama's State of the Union address;
- Cruz's growing strength illustrated by his controversial data mining operation and rejection of Trump's overture to join a Trump-led GOP ticket next fall;
- Trump's challenge to the eligibility of the Canadian-born Cruz to be presidency under the Constitution's requirement of "natural born" citizenship;
- Revelation that Cruz received $1.2 million in loans from Goldman Sachs and Citibank that he failed to report as funding for his successful campaign that year for a U.S. senate seat for Texas;
- Opposition to Cruz from GOP leaders, including Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, former GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole, and others.
No comments:
Post a Comment