Posted on 03/01/2016 5:05:59 PM PST by Maceman
Former top Ted Cruz adviser Rick Tyler says conservatives won’t stop making their case against the likely nominee.
The big, set-piece battle of the Republican primary is very nearly over – but the guerilla war against Donald Trump may have just begun.
Trump is poised to seize the Republican nomination today if the Super Tuesday polls prove predictive – but the spirits of the candidates he’s brutalized, ridiculed and (nearly) beaten are likely to haunt and harass him for the next eight months.
And Ted Cruz –clinging to hopes that a win in home-state Texas would forestall an Alamo moment – represents the greatest latent threat for Trump, who has seen a steady stream of I’ll-never-vote-for-him pronouncements over the last week. Some of those defections (former RNC Chairman Mel Martinez, to name one) have come from the party’s establishment wing. But Trump faces a far, far bigger threat if the right revolts – and the declaration by conservative Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse last weekend was an ominous one, auguring a possible (but not inevitable) second front against Trump.
Cruz isn’t likely to follow Sasse if he withdraws from the race, but he’s already proven himself to be the Che Guevara of the tea party movement. He turned on the GOP establishment in the Senate, whipped up House Republicans to rebel against former House Speaker John Boehner, and shut down the government over Obamacare. Cruz owes his brand to RINO hunting. He doesn’t like Trump despite their early-campaign flirtation – and will like Trump a lot less if he inches toward the center in a general election.
Enter Rick Tyler, a veteran conservative strategist who was, until recently, Cruz’s communications director. I sat down with Tyler for POLITICO’s “Off Message” podcast over the weekend and heard a message that should take some of the fizz from The Donald’s bubbly: Hard-core conservative Republicans may not oppose him publicly, but they could silently undermine his candidacy – and many of the party’s big-money donors, especially pro-Israel heavyweights like Sheldon Adelson, could take a far lesser role in Hillary-bashing than they might have otherwise.
“I think that Hillary Clinton… will hammer [Trump] and expose him for what he is… And if I had to bet, I would say that Hillary Clinton would beat Donald Trump,” said Tyler, who was defenestrated by Cruz last month after he retweeted an inaccurate story about Marco Rubio allegedly demeaning the Bible. The parting was amicable. And the dismissal of Tyler, who worked for Newt Gingrich’s super PAC in 2012, was widely viewed a PR move: Rubio, Trump and Ben Carson had been criticizing the Texas senator for what they deemed dirty tricks, and somebody had to be the sacrificial lamb.
Cruz signed a pledge, like every other Republican to support the eventual nominee – but they didn’t say how much, Tyler reminded me.
When I asked Tyler if his ex-boss would back Trump with “force,” he replied, “Not much because… because, you know, Donald Trump runs around and calls Ted Cruz a liar… That’s very personal.”
When I asked him how serious a problem tea party hostility would be for Trump, he said: “Oh, it’s very significant.”
Tyler outlines the case against Trump from the right – a case Cruz and others are likely to pursue even while “supporting” their nominee: “If you care about gun rights, having Donald Trump be aligned with Michael Bloomberg would be an anathema… he has been quoted as saying, ‘I don't like guns.’ He has been quoted as saying, ‘I support the assault weapons ban.’ And that's true on abortion, partial-birth abortion, gays in the military, homosexual marriage. You know, he’s gone — he’s supported TARP. He’s supported – I mean, it’s on and on and on. I mean, this guy has a contradictory statement for everything he now proclaims and professes to be.”
It seems unlikely that Cruz or Rubio or Bush or Carson or John Kasich will actively oppose Trump as nominee – their allegiance to the Republican Party is stronger than Trump’s. But they could sap his strength by sniping at him, issue-by-issue from the wings.
Tyler raised the specter of 2012, when eventual nominee Mitt Romney – whom many on the right viewed as an establishment sell-out – savaged Gingrich after the former speaker took the South Carolina primary.
“I am sorry to say that our party is going to engage in the politics of personal destruction and that we’re going to call each other names and not talk — it’s very Alinskyite to me,” said Tyler, who remains in close touch with Cruz’s team. “You know: Pick a target, freeze it, focus on it, and destroy it. You know, that seems to be how Donald Trump and now, to some extent, Marco Rubio has decided to run their campaigns. I think that’s a bad — I think that’s a bad omen for the future of the party.”
And there’s another factor: It’s not clear how enthusiastically the big GOP super PACs will support Trump; Tyler’s Gingrich-backing PAC was buoyed by cash from pro-Israel billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Tyler thinks Trump’s recent off-the-cuff comment that he was “neutral” in the Israel-Palestinian standoff was a major error. Could Adelson sit 2016 out?
Former Ted Cruz campaign official Rick Tyler says Donald Trump's bruising tactics may earn him the GOP nomination but could haunt him with Republicans for the rest of election season.
“I think it’s certainly possible,” he said. “I mean, because, on the one hand, you have Donald Trump who just doesn’t even — doesn't seem to understand the Middle East and its problems and how to move forward with it…”
Tyler, who signed up with MSNBC a couple of days after he was dismissed, looks pretty good for a guy who has just seen the bottom of his own campaign bus. The crime: Tweeting a false report alleging that Rubio had made a disparaging remark about the Bible – in the presence of Cruz’s evangelist father.
I talked a bit about the kerfuffle with Tyler (he says his boss is squeaky clean) during our 45-minute interview – and he expressed contrition. “I posted it, and it was poor judgment to post it,” he said. “The reason it was is because it was going to be blown up as, you know, I was criticizing Marco for not being a Bible-believing Christian. I never believed that. Of course, I still believe that he is. I took it as more of Marco was being — you know, it was teasing.”
He rejected, out of hand, my suggestion that he was a sacrificial flack – thrown over so Cruz could arrest the Tricky Teddy narrative. Yet he was candid, even a tad gloomy, about Cruz’s path to the nomination with Trump blocking the road.
“Yeah, it’s narrow,” Tyler told me.
“Ted — if Ted wins Texas and wins some substantial portion of the delegates, he will have a mass of delegates,” he explained, laying out a complicated, and in Tyler’s view, somewhat unlikely scenario. “He will have then had two wins. Rubio will — if Rubio doesn't win any on Tuesday and then goes on to lose his home state of Florida, which right now he would, it should be game over for him. Then maybe, then maybe there’s an outside chance we get a consolidation around Ted Cruz, and he could either accumulate enough delegates to get to the convention or at least stop Trump from accumulating enough delegates to get to the convention.”
Tyler, like almost every other operative gunning for Trump, is still scratching his head over the developer’s unprecedented, rapid rise. But he defends the campaign’s decision to play Eddie Haskell nice with Trump early on, telling me that Cruz needed to use those opening months to establish name recognition and create a likeable image in the minds of voters. And that – my point here, not his – hasn’t always been an easy task for Cruz, who has a far greater gift for combat than cuddling.
“First, they have to know your name, right?” Tyler adds. “Second… they have to like you. And then the final is the contrast phase. And if you skip around those steps, it doesn’t really work.”
Don’t know as it’s bashing, but today I received yet another
“gimmie” for money and told them to take a hike and remove my name.
I no longer believe they vet the candidates they promote.
They’ve sure put in a couple of doozies here in MI and elsewhere.
Georgia Tea party head held a Trump rally in Georgia
You think Nikki Haley is a Tea Party Governor
we have 3 separate TP in my county. I just tell them to keep their voting cards. Plus, when u show up to vote they all ambush you like a vulture to a carcass.
You said...
“Again, Trump is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde. He SAYS what you want to hear, but DOES something else.”
Many Republicans have run as conservatives but govern closer to the left once in office. And many Republican voters have become tired of it.
Yet, in the minds of many, they somehow believe that Trump with be the one to run more as a conservative and govern as a conservative despite his many, many past liberal positions and statements
Isn't that the root of ALL the problems? Wouldn't a small government candidate be the RIGHT answer?
No one has thought about it. Instead, they're glued to the TV and Trumps new "Who Wants To Be President" reality show. His supporters aren't using their heads. They've forgotten their core principals.
You called it.
no.
Well, your choice, that’s what gave is Obama.
Ain’t you proud?
You’re just SO powerful.
That’s okay.
They can be replaced just as they replaced others.
It was never going to be perfect with every one.
The thing is to keep churning them through until you get a halfway decent one.
Apparently you don’t know much about the electorate. I’m not talking primary here. I’m talking general.
Trumps pulling in some demographics we haven’t seen in a while.
bull cookies.
You didn’t tell us a fact about a candidate. You tried to imply something about a candidate based on the actions of a worthless piece of shit: David Duke.
That puts you more in the camp of the latter, in my book.
Some key points of Trump and Tea Party commonality:
Dumping of the GOPe selected candidate and returning political power to the Republican rank and file.
Killing political correctness.
Not advocating government as a solution to all issues.
Advocating fiscal restraint.
Defending the borders aggressively.
Strengthening the military.
Returning the stature of the USA as the world's sole superpower.
Ending obummercare.
Supporting Israel
Feel free to add to the list.
You said..
“You didn’t tell us a fact about a candidate. You tried to imply something about a candidate based on the actions of a worthless piece of shit: David Duke’
No. And, like Trump needs to do himself, you need to think first and react less.
My point was to point out the hypocrisy of those who say that those of us who will sit out the election for president if Trump and Hillary are on the top are, by default, endorsing Hillary yet say a guy who said he’ll vote for Trump and tells his followers to vote for Trump is not endorsing Trump. I don’t believe for a millisecond that Trump loves the KKK or hates Jews. That type of smear is the domain of the left
Clear it up for you, buttercup?
Nothing that spectacular.
I am a FReeper on extended vacation, I ordinarily post as Cringing Negativism Network, but for the time being I will post as CBA123 since I’m using public networks for everything over here at the moment.
Today I am looking at Vietnamese study classes, maybe I will post after my first class, just to say hello.
(I know it’s basic, but you gotta start somewhere)
Best regards.
I won’t bash the Tea Party; the Tea Party has always been the people on the ground, not those who sit in offices and have fooled themselves into thinking they’re making decisions for us.
I know more than you think.
Election of trump means we are living in the movie Idicorcy.
I ordinarily post as Cringing Negativism Network
Hey, thanks CNN : ) Enjoy that extended vacation.
Yeah, yeah. We have heard this song before. Fill in Dole, Bush, McCain, or Romney for Trump and it's the same tune. No more!
This time I'm not even going to blame the ruling elites for giving us a moderate progressive insider to vote for in the general. I blame the voters who fell for a NYC con man instead of nominating a limited governnment conservative like Cruz, Carson or Paul.
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