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| Ted Cruz in South Carolina Wednesday |
Let's review this campaign season, starting of course with Donald Trump.
Donald Trump has used a form of message judo: doubling down. It works the opposite of the way political gaffs used to work. A "gaff" is understood to be the accidental telling of a truth, a truth that is embarrassing or inconsistent with the established political line. It is uttering something politically incorrect.
Trump's brand is not to apologize or "walk back" statements. It is to accept the premise of the criticism. If someone says "what you are saying insults Muslims!" Trump does not walk it back saying he meant no insult. Instead he accepts and accelerates the criticism and uses it to extend and refine his message saying something like, "Well, Muslims who kill Americans deserve to be insulted. And then killed. That's just common sense."
It confirms Trump's status as a plain talker, a courageous man, and the opposite of the "feckless weakling" that Republicans now call Obama--at least when they are not calling Obama an overbearing tyrant.
Ted Cruz knows a good argument when he utters one. As I said yesterday, he should be perfectly happy with being criticized for condemning "New York values." He should embrace the criticism and amplify it, not apologize for it. His voters have an idea of what "New York values" are, and they don't like them: tolerance for foreigners, Jews, Muslims, homosexuality, "theater people", public transportation, Wall Street, and gun laws.
So he isn't apologizing. He is doubling down in Iowa:
"I apologize to the millions of New yorkers who've been abandoned for years by liberal politicians.
I apologize to all the hardworking men and women in New York who'd like to have jobs, but Governor Cuomo has banned fracking.
I apologize to all the New Yorkers who are pro-life and pro-marriage and pro-2nd Amendment."
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Cruz is doubling down, Trump like.
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