Ted Cruz's Campaign Is Accused of Spreading Rumors of Marco Rubio's Withdrawal

The New York Times ^ | 3-8-2016 | Alan Rappeport

[Citizen Zed]

Senator Ted Cruz is under fire from Senator Marco Rubio’s campaign, which accuses him and his campaign of employing more “dirty tricks” ahead of the Republican caucuses in Hawaii on Tuesday and spreading false rumors that Mr. Rubio is dropping out of the race.

[mlo]

It’s not a dirty trick to speculate about Rubio withdrawing. We read news stories that did that very thing yesterday.

[ripnbang]

Except MN and PR.

[Just mythoughts]

WWJD crowd sure loves to play devilish tricks.

[Obadiah]

Exactly. Look, in another life I’ve managed congressional campaigns. That’s how it works. The candidate loans his campaign all the money (usually seed money) and it is repaid on the backend by donors. But candidates like Trump will understandably do this on a grander level with the prospect of repayment increased with a potentially successful campaign.

So yeah, Trump is technically self funding his campaign, but not without financial recourse.

[Obadiah]

First, there's nothing wrong or improper with what Trump is doing, it's just that his "self-funded" campaign is not so self-funded. The only reason I bring it up is because some people, ahem, are dissing Cruz for taking campaign contributions. By the way, here is the link. Source is all I could find on the fly.

[Albion Wilde]

Nope, it was an election.

Aaaaand we're back to the starting line!

[jobim]

What do you think? Dirty Tricks?

No, just fairly typical political tactics. I did call the number and left a message, and I'll let
you know what they say. I do think it is a blunder, however, for Cruz, running as a
forthright Christian, to engage in typical political maneuvering. But he may indeed have
had no input. It adds to the impression coming out of Iowa, an impression he needs to
dispel, I would think, but if playing to win, I suppose you play as hard as you can.

Having Neil Bush on the finance team would seem to another blunder for one running as
an "outsider." I originally supported and gave $ to Cruz (hence the daily emails), but I
now support Trump because I think Cruz is doing what he can to hide his ties to the
Establishment. Ony Trump appears to be truly an outsider.

[TexasCajun]

Trump's main appeal is that he is not a politician.

We've been through his Republican/Conservative conversion.

Ted Cruz was anti-establishment before Trump was even a Republican.

Ted Cruz is despised by the GOPe, McConnell, MeCain, Graham & RNC.

They hate Trump & Cruz, Trump is currently winning and looks like he's gonna be the nomination.

I voted Cruz but will support Trump if nominated.

The real Establishment candidate is Gang-of-Eight Rubio.

[Hattie]

Let us see it.

[WENDLE]

Trump takes small donations but he does not solicit them. It is too expensive to send them back. They dont even cover his fuel costs.He is self funding $Millions of dollars and working his tail off. He is salaried by his businesses. I assure you, he makes money. That is ok . Right? I worry about his health. The fact that he doesn’t drink is never mentioned. I don’t know how he does this. I knew that little folks send him money. If he is nominated, I will give to the party again. What you don’t see are the big donor control of Trump. . They are funding Romney, for example. What a waste of good money that is. Its all about secret agenda— Paid for by donors. This corrupt money is the only thing that could possibly drive cruz to vote for the un-american TPP/ TRA. Terrible. Cruz is less of a puppet than rinio.

[WENDLE]

TPA sorry.

[GrouchoTex]

I’ll give Trump credit here.
(Full disclosure, I am a Cruz guy).
If he loses no one will care where the reimbursement comes from.
If he wins, no one will pay attention.
He can run saying he has no special interest money going to him.
The key is to remember and see who ponies up on the back end.
If he (or any of them) wins, it will go something like this:

“In other news, BLM protest occurred in Washington D.C. President (Trump/Cruz/Rubio/Kasich/Clinton/Sanders) is in Manhattan today, attending a private fundraising event, and could not be reached for immediate comment”

[conservativesister]

I keep seeing pictures of Graham, McCain & Rubio, that really makes me uneasy. That is as UN-CONSERVATIVE as it can get.

[JediJones]

How does Rubio know that one of his advisers doesn’t think he’ll get out by March 15th? That is far from a wild claim. It’s totally believable. In fact, didn’t Drudge just have a huge headline up yesterday saying the same thing?

I believe what the e-mail says 100%. I also believe Rubio will NOT drop out before March 15th. What I wouldn’t believe is if NONE of his advisors thought he’d drop out. The e-mail is almost guaranteed to be true.

[JediJones]

You think that's unconservative? How about adding in Schumer and the whole gang of 8?

[conservativesister]

Excellent point, he rides on both sides.

[CyberAnt]

Well, since the owner of the NYT attended the “secret meeting”, I believe this statement is just the beginning of the attacks upon Trump and Cruz.

Get ready .. it’s going to be brutal.

[GrouchoTex]

“As I’m sure most of us know, he can use campaign contributions to pay off campaign debt, so he will be able to reimburse himself for every penny he spent in the primary with general election donations.”

I hope you are correct.

I am afraid that there are some out there who think Trump is only doing this out of the kindness of his heart, that he only wants to to “Make America great” again, and that he will not seek to be reimbursed.

Unfortunately, based on things I have read here on FR, a few of those folks exist. Maybe a few of them are just brand new to the political process.

[WENDLE]

This is very similar to the CNN Tweets on Dr. Carson. In fact ,it is almost the exact same lie told twice. IT WAS REFUTED by the campaign as 100% wrong. Same as Carson. Do you see a worn out strategy here?

[Pollster1]

This is a non-story. The story on Rubio was released by CNN. It is entirely legitimate for Cruz to spread mainstream news that helps his campaign. If CNN has information that the story came from a Cruz source (unlikely since they identify the source as within the Rubio campaign), it would be sleazy. Otherwise, it’s what Cruz is supposed to do.