Sen. Ted Cruz has started attacking Donald Trump, his main rival in Iowa, for having “New York values.” While Cruz hasn’t explained exactly what he means by that, he told Megyn Kelly that “the rest of the country knows exactly what New York values are.”
Of course, faux populism is nothing new from Cruz, who now duck hunts with the “Duck Dynasty” clan but at Harvard Law “refused to study with anyone who hadn’t been an undergrad at Harvard, Princeton, or Yale.” Nor is contempt for New Yorkers, as he voted against aid for victims of Hurricane Sandy but demanded federal aid for people affected by flooding in Texas.
But there is one thing Cruz seems to like about New York: money.
According to the Federal Election Commission, New York is the fourth biggest fundraising state for the Cruz campaign.
In fact, it was at a New York fundraiser for his campaign that Cruz told a pro-gay-marriage donor that he wouldn’t make opposition to marriage equality a top priority of his administration, seeming to contradict what he told Religious Right groups.
Robert Mercer, who lives in a Long Island suburb of New York, is “the main donor behind a network of four ‘super PACs’ supporting Mr. Cruz that reported raising $31 million just a few weeks into his campaign.”
Cruz’s wife works for the New York-based firm Goldman Sachs, the same firm that gave the Cruz family a big (unreported) loan during Ted’s Senate campaign and whose employees and PAC have been generous donors to his campaign.
Cruz’s new line about “New York values” is just more honest, unifying rhetoric from the candidate who repeatedly accuses President Obama of trying “to divide us, to try to tear us apart” rather than “looking for ways to bring us together, to unify us.”
