Yesterday we were stunned when we learned that in order to support Ted Cruz and to "attack" Donald Trump, Liz Mair's anti-Trump Make America Awesome super PAC launched a Facebook campaign which in addition to showcasing Mitt Romney's support for Ted Cruz, emphasizing Trump’s past support for pro-choice policies, it also crossed the family line when it showed a GQ modeling photo of Melania Trump posing nude.
Crossed lines aside, what surprised us most is that "showing a naked Melania Trump, a successful, multi-lingual supermodel and undoubtedly the most attractive first lady America would ever have, is not exactly an attack ad" and we wondered how badly this ad would backfire "the moment men end up seeing the ad." We will find out the moment the Utah primary results come in, even though by her admission, Mair certainly did her best to only focus on women voters.
In any case, about an hour ago Trump found out about Cruz' attack ad. This is what he said:
Lyin' Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin' Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2016
"Spill the beans?" Cruz immediately responded, attempting tto explain he had no idea what is going on, but warning Trump to stay away from Heidi:
Pic of your wife not from us. Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you're more of a coward than I thought. #classless https://t.co/0QpKSnjgnE
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 23, 2016
In other words, having been called out, Cruz quickly tried to distance himself form a below the belt hitting Super PAC that supports him and which used naked pics of Melania. But is quick to challenge Trump not to "attack Heidi", even though his own camp did just that with Mrs. Trump.
Which makes us wonder: just what "beans" of Heidi Cruz does Trump have in mind? Recall that Heidi worked for about a decade for none other than Goldman Sachs - about as status quo establishment as it gets - after which "she has become a fund-raising power, specializing in soliciting maximum contributions from well-heeled donors."
But then there is this, more troubling part, from the NYT:
Mrs. Cruz and her husband, Senator Ted Cruz, were living 1,500 miles apart and trying to find a happy balance in their own lives. Soon after, Mrs. Cruz quit her high-powered post in Washington, took a job in finance and moved to Texas, an unfamiliar place, to be closer to Mr. Cruz, then the state’s solicitor general. The transition unsettled her.
In August 2005, a police officer in Austin, answering a call about a woman sitting beside an expressway on-ramp, found Mrs. Cruz with her head in her hands. He transported her to an unnamed facility, according to his report, which said, “I believed that she was a danger to herself.”
Normally, these would not be topics of consideration when debating the merits of a presidential candidate, but then again, neither would this photo be part of an "attack" (really, support) ad...
To be sure, we knew this presidential race would promptrly devolve to the surreal and absurd, but not even we expected that it would very quickly transform itself into a campaign where naked photos of potential first ladies would randomly appear on social networks.
As for the Cruz attack ad (because even if he tries to admit it, it was his) we wonder how many full-blooded males would "support Ted Cruz" on Tuesday if given a choice of him... or Melania as first lady. Even Mormons.