The media shop for Texas senator Ted Cruz, who is engaged in a claws-out fight with mogul Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, displayed impressive strength and creativity at week’s end.
But Cruz’s ad folk are not incapable of missteps.
For example, an actor in a new campaign spot, Conservatives Anonymous, used to perform in soft pornography, which the Cruz camp was not aware of until the ad was cut and distributed. Then BuzzFeed figured out the porn connection:
“Amy Lindsay has appeared in films such as Erotic Confessions, Carnal Wishes, Secrets of a Chambermaid, and Insatiable Desires,” the website reported.
A Cruz campaign spokesman told BuzzFeed: “Had the campaign known of her full filmography, we obviously would not have let her appear in the ad.”
The actor in question is the one who says, “Maybe you should vote for more than just a pretty face next time.” She means that you should not vote for Marco Rubio.
The problem with the group therapy ad comes after a string of ad successes from Cruz, who this week released two video spots attacking Trump and one attacking Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton.
The ads have been praised for a witty allusion to pop culture, in one case, and a devilishly effective line of attack against Trump for his attempt, once upon a time, to use eminent domain laws to clear a widow’s house for a limousine parking lot in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Cruz is running an ad in South Carolina, where Republicans vote next, that invokes a scene from Office Space, the 1999 ballad of disaffected cubicle life, to tweak Clinton for her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state:
Cruz is also running a pair of ads against Trump. One accuses him of using “power for personal gain”, telling the story of the widow, Vera Coking, whose house Trump went after in the early 1990s. The city of Atlantic City condemned the house, but Coking fought back and won. (She ended up selling the house in 2014.)
The second Cruz anti-Trump ad features kids playing with a Donald Trump doll. “He pretends to be a Republican,” one kid says and they all crack up.
Then they smash a dollhouse, bellowing “Eminent domain! Eminent domain!”
“We wouldn’t tolerate these values in our children … Why would we want them in a president?” a voiceover concludes.
Trump tweeted on Friday that Cruz was “the worst liar, crazy or very dishonest” and was not behaving in a Christlike manner.
Lying Cruz put out a statement, “Trump & Rubio are w/Obama on gay marriage." Cruz is the worst liar, crazy or very dishonest. Perhaps all 3?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2016
How can Ted Cruz be an Evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2016
