.
Ted Cruz is a smarmy, hypocritical thug. And if the stories in Andy Kroll’s TNR report are any sample, Jeff Roe is his perfect campaign manager:
… Roe wasn’t an obvious choice to join Cruz’s team. He had no personal connection to the candidate. He’d worked only on the periphery of a couple of presidential campaigns—Mike Huckabee in 2008, Rick Perry in 2012. He’d never even managed a winning statewide race.
Roe knew Cruz was his guy. He had studied practically everything Cruz had ever done and said. Both men believed that politicians too often waffled in the face of opposition, and failed to deliver on what they promised to their strongest supporters. “It pisses me off,” Roe told me recently. Politicians, he said, leave voters “behind, they take them for granted. Because of that, less and less people participate in the system because their values continue to get trampled and they don’t feel like there is an outlet for them to do anything about it.”
Roe also pitched himself as singularly qualified to run Cruz’s presidential bid, touting a pedigree few, if any other, operatives had—how he’d built his own full-scale political operation from scratch, with multimillion-dollar budgets, dozens of employees, running everything from TV to direct mail, fund-raising, polling, research, strategy. And he was ready to put the whole thing on pause and move to Houston for Cruz—to go all in…
What we’ve yet to see in this campaign is Roe’s other trademark attribute: the brass-knuckled approach to winning that’s made him many enemies. From his earliest days running state and local campaigns, he’s taken a scorched-earth approach to politics. Roe and his tactics have been blamed for damaging opponents’ lives and reputations, and even for contributing to a gubernatorial candidate’s suicide. (Roe doesn’t exactly hide from this reputation: His web site features headlines describing him as “ruthless” and a “leading practitioner of hard-ball politics.”)…
The portrait that emerges is of a sleepless, methodical operative—“machine-like,” as a former client put it—who has made himself into the quintessential Svengali of our money-drenched, hyperpolarized era. You could form a support group with all the scarred and embittered candidates out there, Democrats and Republicans alike, who’ve ended up on the wrong side of Jeff Roe. “He’s the best of the worst,” said one Kansas City Republican who was beaten by a Roe client. “The guy’s a scoundrel—and probably worse,” said a Democrat who ended up on the wrong side of Roe. “Be careful,” said another Democrat when I told her I was writing about Roe. “He’s dangerous. Call your mom. Tell her you love her.”…One morning in the fall of 2006, Sara Jo Shettles, a Democratic nominee for Congress from just northeast of Kansas City, was out on a campaign trip with her adult son. From the other side of their motel room, Shettles’s son yelled for his mom to come look at what was on the TV. “I looked up and there I was: the worst possible picture of me in the world with a big ‘XXX’ over my head in bright letters,” she recently recalled. The 63-year-old, wheelchair-bound Shettles, a longtime Democratic activist, was running against Sam Graves—and, by extension, Jeff Roe. Shettles had neither the money nor the name recognition to mount a real challenge to the three-term incumbent. But that didn’t stop Roe.
Years before, Shettles had worked for General Media Inc., selling ads for the science magazine Omni and a few other trade mags. Roe seized on the fact that General Media’s flagship title was none other than Penthouse. That was more than enough for him to cut the defining ad of the race. His triple-X attack ad accused Shettles of peddling “smut” and effectively made her out to be a pornographer. Shettles defended herself by saying she was hired by Omni, paid by Omni, and never sold ads directly for Penthouse. (She told me recently that she handled contracts that also included ads for Penthouse.) Roe wasn’t buying it. “She worked for scum,” he told the Kansas City Star at the time…
I asked Roe about all these incidents, along with many more rumors I’d heard, over the course of our conversations. He said the Shettles Penthouse ad was accurate. He refused to comment on the Brazil episode. What came through most clearly was Roe’s lack of repentance. He sees no reason to apologize—quite the contrary, in fact. When a Kansas City Star column appeared in 2007, criticizing his tactics under the headline, “Voters Seem OK With Political Low,” he had the story made into a plaque for his wall at the Axiom office. “Politics ain’t beanbag,” he likes to say…
After Cruz also chose Roe, he moved his family and in-laws to Houston as he’d promised—and he insisted everyone else on the Cruz campaign do the same. There would be no far-flung team members, no interminable conference calls. Everyone who wanted a spot on the campaign had to move to sweaty Houston. “This is a cause and not a client,” Roe said… According to a senior Cruz aide, Roe runs the office much the way he did Axiom. Meetings are conducted with brutal efficiency, punctuality matters, and Roe is quick to dispense parables from the hog farm and howitzer crew to make his point.
But his contribution has gone far beyond the tight running of the operation and the on-message consistency of the candidate. At the outset, Roe said, the most common perception of Cruz was as a “Texas Tea Party firebrand.” But to win, Cruz needed more than just Tea Partiers. He needed the whole base—which just so happened to be Roe’s passion. So the campaign team, led by Roe, set in motion a plan to relentlessly court not just Tea Partiers but Christian evangelicals, libertarians, pro-lifers, the whole panoply of the far right. They set the campaign’s tone by choosing Liberty University, founded by the iconic evangelical preacher Jerry Falwell, as the setting for Cruz’s campaign announcement in March 2015.
Cruz’s strategy—stroke the conservative id, coalesce the base, and trash the establishment—has worked wonders so far. But over the long haul, Republicans on the outside of the Cruz campaign say it’s risky, especially in light of poor turnout within the base in recent elections. “It narrows the path,” one GOP operative not affiliated with a campaign told me. “If you put in place the turnout machine to get those people out, you can win the nomination. But you have to run the perfect race.”…
So, apart from the major goal of keeping a thoroughly unsuitable candidate out of the Oval Office, defeating Ted Cruz would also deliver a serious blow to one of nature’s least attractive parasites. Eyes on the prize, indeed.
eemom
You really should occasionally consider easing up on the copyright infringement. Jussayinzall.
benw
Buzzzzzzzzzz! Sting ’em, Jackets!
Baud
I go back and forth between whether Cruz or Trump is the more odious candidate.
lamh36
geg6
Between this guy and Lewindowski, the GOP seems to have patent on scum of the earth slime campaign operatives. I really didn’t think the bottom could go lower than Rove, but I was obviously very wrong.
Mnemosyne
I avoided the initial coverage of the bombings in Belgium, but there was an interesting report today that the bombers all had long rap sheets long before they went to Syria: armed robbery, carjacking, all kinds of shit. Apparently the Belgian authorities weren’t stopping their criminals from traveling to Syria to join Daesh because, hey, maybe they would get killed and not come back. Yeah, that didn’t really work out.
Ken
@Baud: Maybe the Republican ticket will have both of them, and you won’t have to choose.
Thor Heyerdahl
@eemom: I had the same thought but then saw how long the original article was. Prime grade A assholes Cruz & Roe.
As a Canadian, I cannot support Calgary Ted. My support is fully for Baud.
Thor Heyerdahl
@Mnemosyne: Maybe this will lead to a little more Flemish / Wallonian cooperation – at least in intelligence.
Linnaeus
This guy sounds like a good reason to invest in tumbrels.
eemom
@Thor Heyerdahl:
The length of the original article has no bearing on the simple rule that “fair use” is limited to a BRIEF quotation plus a link.
Again, jussayinzall. Ain’t my ass that could get sued.
jl
So sleazy sociopathic liar and smear artist hires the same thing to run his campaign? Sounds about right.
” Both men believed that politicians too often waffled in the face of opposition, and failed to deliver on what they promised to their strongest supporters. ”
Damn straight. What voters really want is futile grandstanding and obstruction that accomplishes nothing but gets fanatical supporters riled up.
Which is one of the reasons Cruz would lose in November if he were the GOP candidate. The guy just cannot help himself from pulling stupid and infuriating stunts.
Librarian
Ted Cruz is a smarmy, hypocritical thug.
And those are his good qualities!
M. Bouffant
@eemom: Copyright is theft. Also, look into “fair use”.
Plus which: Has there been a sudden epidemic of websites being sued for blockquoting?
Major Major Major Major
@eemom: % size of excerpt does factor into the equation, actually, especially in a more-or-less not-for-profit use like this one. Or it did during grad school at any rate…
Aleta
Sorry to repost, but Obama danced the tango in Argentina.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hjRIFeyE0-0&time_continue=105&ebc=ANyPxKqRUdebFSLj9H8j-Jt_0UIPFag7ZoQPX9nyfNNkSVjNKmYOHIDC9wR7Q2oNyK_i_gqKUj3k
Chris
@Baud:
Judge Claude Frollo versus Eric Cartman? I’m not sure either.
Technocrat
I’m conflicted about this. It’s insightful, and true. But it’s also like watching Beelzebub admit climate change is real.
eemom
@M. Bouffant:
?
Linnaeus
@Technocrat:
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
amk
@Technocrat: right words, wrong mouth.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
Huh, that’s just what the Saudis did in the 1980s. Export all your troublesome elements to a foreign war and hope they get killed. Whoops, who knew some of them would come back trained and radicalized and causing more trouble than could ever have been imagined.
NobodySpecial
Arguing facts with certain commented is rather futile when they find their windmill and affix their lance…
Major Major Major Major
@eemom: well, if property is theft…
(Guessing)
NotMax
@M. Bouffant
AL has a long displayed track record of ‘the rampaging deserts’ – dearth of condensation.
SiubhanDuinne
@eemom:
Serious question, because I honestly don’t know at what point “fair use” wanders off and cedes place to “copyright infringement.” I didn’t do a word count, but it looks to me as though AL has quoted 11 paragraphs out of about 57 paragraphs in the original article (so 20% or a little less), and she is conscientious about putting in ellipses when she snips a section of the quoted material. How is fair use/copyright infringement determined? If the copyright holder were to come after her, what would they base their case on? What would AL use as defence?
/ Siubhan “IANAL” Duinne
ETA: I see some of this has already been discussed while I was busy typing this comment, but the whole thing still seems vague in an “I-know-it-when-I-see-it” way.
Mike in NC
Ted Ooze has very small hands. Pass it on.
SiubhanDuinne
@srv:
That’s persuasive. Rudy Giuliani, talking about Hillary Clinton, to Bill O’Reilly, on Fox News, cited by srv.
Well, I’m certainly convinced.
NotMax
@Mike in NC
You can’t fool the BJ crowd.
Serpents don’t have hands.
;)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne: Rudi and Bill-O can bond over how their daughters don’t speak to them
Major Major Major Major
@SiubhanDuinne: IIRC IANAL etc., the considerations are: 10% or less?, “not the heart of the work”?, for profit?, and accessible by the public?
The judge gets to decide the relative weighing. And it changes a lot. The internet opened up a real can of worms.
rikyrah
@Aleta:
Coolest President EVER!!?
NotMax
OT:
Strictly for the comic book crowd to savor: in the Superman serial on TCM right now one of the henchman is listed in the credits as being played by an actor named Wally West.
(Years before Kid Flash was a gleam in any editor’s eye, but still kind of a funny coincidence.)
rikyrah
When your candidate is Ted Cruz….what type of human would you think would be working for him?
Answer: pure scum
Technocrat
@srv:
Information Theory says, roughly, that the amount of information in a signal is inversely proportional to it’s predictability. For example, that statement could be reasonably compressed to “Guiliani mentioned Clinton”.
Mary G
@eemom: I know you feel this way about AL’s posts. You’ve been bitching about them for years. Can’t we have a rest from it for a while? If someone was going to sue they would’ve already.
I think Ann Laurie is the glue that keeps this blog together. She’s been invaluable to me in hooking up with other readers. She reads Twitter so I don’t have to, and posts pet blegs and garden posts that no one else does.
Major Major Major Major
@Technocrat: I propose an experiment to kill two information theory birds with one stone: throw Giuliani into a black hole and measure the difference.
muddy
@Mary G: I agree. The link is always there, anyone can click through easily.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Cruz, hands down.
Mike J
@Major Major Major Major:
The only strictly legal percentage is zero. You can be sued for quoting one word. You can present fair use as a defense at your trial, but there is no magic percentage that makes anything legal. If the copyright owner is more interested in punishing you than getting a verdict, you’re screwed.
In real life, if TNR were upset about the length of a snippet, they’d probably send an email to Cole saying please stop. Since they haven’t done that, it would seem that they like the hits steered their way more than they are annoyed by the length.
Anybody can play lawyer on the internet, even actual lawyers. They aren’t always, or even uisually, right.
RaflW
@srv: Rudy Giuliani is still a lying prick. Film at 11.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mary G: @muddy: I think that that this may be an issue that resonates more with lawyers and academics than with the general public.
Mnemosyne
For connoisseurs of crazy lawsuit filings, Jared Loughner apparently filed a $25 million lawsuit against Gabrielle Giffords today. I say “apparently” because this story thinks it may be a hoax perpetrated by whoever filed the fake Uber driver lawsuit. So a weird story may be even weirder than it first appeared.
amk
@srv: idjit.
eemom
@Mary G:
Really? Redundant bitching is a problem for you on this blog, and yet you’re still here?
I was going to STFU, because I really don’t give a shit, but “AL is the glue that keeps this blog together”?? Please. There are some talented FPers (and commenters) that post ORIGINAL work here. That’s the glue as far as I’m concerned. YMMV.
Technocrat
@Major Major Major Major:
We’d get a Nobel for making a black hole broadcast “911…911…” on a loop.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
AL’s typographic indigestion is in no way a reflection on her character.
Major Major Major Major
@Technocrat: thereby proving that black holes can destroy information of the form “noun, verb”
lamh36
ugh… this is the type of shit that crested Trump and his voters…on Fox News of course, I’ll say it again, I don’t feel sympathy for anyone who worked for Faux News when Trump maligns them (looking at you Megyn Kelly), YALL built this shit!!!
Fuck all me
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: They are the assholes who have always existed. You’ve lived your life in the South as a Black woman. You know them. Now, if this is a cry of frustration because how dumb can these m-fs be and still be able to breathe, I get it.
My aunt ran into Gingrich on a church trip to DC a couple of years ago. She saw him in a church so she thought it would be rude to confront him there. She still regrets doing the polite thing.
Aleta
@Baud: Such comparisons are odorous.
Peale
@lamh36: The more they talk, the more I look forward to electing a long string of Anti-American presidents, each more filled with hatred for our country than the next.
I’d vote for Baud, but he seems to be too jovial/
danielx
Given what a miserable sonofabitch Cruz is said to be (by many), this sounds like a perfect meeting of minds and goals. Granted, campaign managers generally are mean sumbitches – it’s almost a prerequisite, given the stakes involved in their work.
danielx
@Omnes Omnibus:
So she should, Newt (and his Neuticles™) cannot be insulted and to the best of my knowledge has never – ever – let politeness, courtesy, manners or anything else pose a barrier to his ambitions and actions.
danielx
@efgoldman:
Probably not, although I’ve read that it’s difficult to be healed of the presidential bug. Which virus is clearly easy to catch, given the crop of idiots and yahoos (both now and in 2012) who looked in the mirror and saw Republican presidential timber looking back at them.
redshirt
@NotMax: Ancient snake with hands and legs.
redshirt
@danielx: Mitt is still waiting in the wings!
Punchy
This is guy who will release an ad declaring Trump a sociopathic pedophile, then watch as CNN debates how “both sides” have pedophillic candidates.
BillinGlendaleCA
@redshirt: Small hands eh, sure that isn’t Trump?
redshirt
@BillinGlendaleCA: Maybe an ancestor.
rikyrah
Our President did the tango in Argentina…
BWA HA HA HA H AH HA HA HA
His haterz are gonna go apeshyt.
Lamh36
wow this was just retweeted by a major candidate for President…going after Tes Cruz wife…wow
https://twitter.com/chrisgeidner/status/712853416670789634
I have said Trump doesn’t want this but he stuck so he’ll keep winning u til he doesn’t and he’ll continually say more over the top things as we get closer to convention and at convention when they try to chose someone else, he won’t “fight” it, his voters will but he won’t
James E Powell
@rikyrah:
Earlier this evening CNN played the video of the Obamas dancing as if it were Louis XVI & Marie Antoinette dancing while Paris burned. The RW woman guest was in a rage.
I don’t usually watch any news shows, but I was dog-sitting for the last three days and let the news run in the background. It is really much worse than I thought.
redshirt
I’m so so so so glad I watch ZERO news.
Cable news is ALL propaganda.
Punchy
@James E Powell: at this rate, Obama’s not going to win this election.
BillinGlendaleCA
@James E Powell: They want a President who dances like this.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Punchy: I’m certainly not voting for him.
RaflW
President Obama could eat apple pie and a RW woman will be enraged on cable news. My g-d it is so boring! I’m amazed anyone not in Depend undergarments and unable to operate a remote still watches that garbage.
mclaren
@SiubhanDuinne:
Corporations have destroyed fair use. There is no such thing anymore.
redshirt
@BillinGlendaleCA: I might.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus:
Wait…but…but THAT would mean…that this here blog must be filled with…
NOOOOOOO….
scav
@RaflW: I mean, come-on! RED apples? Commie! GREEN apples? Environmental Jackbooted Over-reach and there is not global warming! GOLDEN apples? Elitist out of touch weirdo!
M. Bouffant
@eemom: Like property, you know.
RaflW
So that N.C. law that bans trans people in bathrooms also bars all local ordinances about minimum wage, leave, benefits, or “well-being of minors in the workforce.”
So basically, the N.C. GOP has thrown decades of bullshit about how local control is better right under a Mack truck. Multiple other states are said to be considering similar laws. I presume fellow conservatives will stay mum about this, since it is ostensibly about icky trans people, and also highly annoying things like minimum wages and work rules.
I cannot stand to hear the phrase “principled conservative” ever fucking again. Ever.
Those shitstains.
M. Bouffant
@NotMax: Which I appreciate as I’m too damn busy to follow every link.
redshirt
@RaflW: You think consistency means anything to them?
THE DEFICIT!!!!*
*Raises the deficit by historical amounts the moment they are in power.
redshirt
So, as per thread title, does Cruz have a bigger dick than Trump? That’s what the election is about, right?
BillinGlendaleCA
@redshirt: Democrats are ALWAYS responsible for increases in the debt, Republicans ALWAYS take credit for decreases in the debt.
Tripod
Undertaker Ted comes off as a character from Carnivàle.
redshirt
@BillinGlendaleCA: You and I know this; I just referenced it because it’s one of the clearer and easily provable examples of how hypocritical Republicans are.
TaMara (BHF)
@Aleta: Ok, I’m a true Obot, but I can confidently say he will never win a ballroom dance competition with that weak tea.
======
I’ve had a weird and shitty week, so my patience is frayed, so I’ll try and be nice here. I absolutely second the fact that AL is indeed invaluable to this blog. And she is always sharing things I would miss otherwise. And I’m grateful.
If you don’t like her posts, why pop in and comment – why not just move on to another one that is relevant to your tastes? Seems petty.
Tripod
He’s definitely the 2016 candidate most likely to self-flagellate.
TaMara (BHF)
@SiubhanDuinne: Your snark makes me happy.
danielx
Y’know, I am beginning to wonder about the absence of posts by Sarah, Proud and Tall during the current silly season. The old trollop has to have some good stuff about parties attended by both her and He, Trump.
Karmus
I will also weigh in with a word of thanks to AL for her postings, generally among my faves. Okay, bye.
eemom
@TaMara (BHF):
Wow. Once again — so sorry for engaging in the unprecedented act of commenting on a BJ post I don’t like. I realize I’m an outlier, but hell, at least I write my own comments.
ETA: And once again — I just kind of have a thing about respecting people who publish their own original work, and conversely, rolling my eyes at 24/7 serial copying. YMMV.
shortribs
@TaMara (BHF):
I’ve lurked on this blog for many years so am familiar with AL and just about everyone, but I never once actually clicked through to their Author Bio and holy shnikies! AL has 6035 blog posts!! I don’t think I’ve ever made or done 6000 of anything. I’m also gaining an understanding of what Alain the Site Fixer is up against if that’s only one front pager’s posting’s along side the number of comments. I remember this blog when it was mostly just JC posting here, I like the diversity of people and opinions, regardless if I agree with all or everything.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@TaMara (BHF): Second that. Just skip her posts, if they annoy you. If she’s wrong,* then argue on the merits.
There’s a newish FPer here whose chosen topics drive me fucking nuts when I am forced to engage with them elsewhere – but I’m not forced to engage with them here, so I don’t. My blood pressure stays as low as her clicks/comments and I suppose that’s as close as I’m going to get to a win.
This message brought to you by 55 goddamn years of being a slow learner.
*for your value of wrong
redshirt
Front Pagers ranked in terms of importance to the Blog as it exists in March, 2016:
1. AL
2. BC
3. AS
4. JC
5. TL
6. MM
7. DJ
8. ??
redshirt
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Hillary?
eemom
@danielx:
Zactly. Now SHE is as original as it gets.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@redshirt: Yes. World views so different we just couldn’t have any sort of reasonable conversation in print. In person might well be a different story, as I’ve often found. We all choose what we show of ourselves here, but it’s a tiny fraction of the whole person(ality).
ETA: I notice she doesn’t make your list. How many FPers are there/have there been here, anyway? My Balloon Juice experience only goes back to about 2005.
NotMax
@TaMara <BHF)
Missed the point by several miles there.
Not at all about liking or disliking posts, it’s about critiquing the discretion or lack thereof applied when showcasing or excerpting others’ work.
Amir Khalid
This particular excerpt ran too long for me. It’s hard for a reader to figure out what specific point you meant to highlight. I would have used, at most, paragraphs four and five of the excerpt.
redshirt
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Lots. And some for very brief periods. That’s why I didn’t go beyond 7 because I can’t think of any other long timers.
SP&T probably should be on it, though she’s not that old. And it’s all an act, right?
redshirt
@redshirt: I miss Dennis.
Calouste
@redshirt: SP&T is in reality a guy who lives in Australia (Sydney IIRC). He used to comment here quite a bit under his own identity, but hasn’t been around much in a while. Can’t remember his actual nym.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@NotMax: There’s fair use concerns and there’s trolling.
father pussbucket
A qualified charlatan bully, then.