Texan scrambles

Ted Cruz in turmoil as Rubio gathers steam

Texan scrambles to fix his image as ‘dirty tricks’ allegations stick.

By Eli Stokols and Shane Goldmacher

Marco Rubio won the day before Nevada’s caucuses—and Ted Cruz lost.

While Rubio was racking up big endorsements, he also managed to exact a pound of political flesh from his closest rival when Cruz’s campaign was thrown into turmoil over new allegations of “dirty tricks.”

“When you stand in front of a sign at every rally that says ‘TrustTED’ with ‘Ted’ being the key part of the brand, you have to protect that brand at all costs—and they’ve lost that brand,” said Bruce Haynes, a GOP strategist. “Cruz cannot afford three days of the news cycle with everyone scrutinizing everything they’ve done that might be unseemly, so they had one choice to try and stop the bleeding, especially with Rubio on a bit of a rocket ride right now.”

Cruz abruptly fired communications director Rick Tyler on Monday afternoon, a day after posting, and then deleting, a link to a blog that had misstated Rubio’s comments about the Bible. Tyler apologized but it was not enough, especially after Cruz’s team took criticism for falsely implying, just as Iowans prepared to vote, that rival Ben Carson was getting ready to drop out.

“This campaign now has repeatedly done things that they have to apologize for, and no one is ever held accountable,” Rubio said to reporters in Nevada on Monday. “Who’s going to be held accountable for making up this video, who is going to be held accountable for lying about Ben Carson? Who was held accountable for the robo-calls, and who was held accountable for the commercials on television that they had to pull down?”

It didn’t take long for Cruz to answer.

"I had made clear in this campaign that we will conduct this campaign with the very highest standards of integrity," Cruz said Monday afternoon as he told reporters that he has asked for Tyler’s resignation.

"That has been how we've conducted it from day one. It is why when other campaigns attack us personally, impugn my integrity or my character, I don't respond in kind. None of you have heard me throw the kind of insults at Marco Rubio that he throws at me every single day. If other candidates choose to go into the gutter, we will not do the same,” Cruz said.

“Rick Tyler's a good man,” Cruz continued. “This was a grave error of judgment. It turned out the news story he sent around was false, but I'll tell you, even if it was true, we are not a campaign that is going to question the faith of another candidate."

Donald Trump, who is polling ahead of Rubio and Cruz in Nevada and a majority of Super Tuesday states, has joined Rubio in attacking the Texas senator over his untruthfulness. As news of Tyler’s firing broke, Trump fired off five gleeful tweets, one of which called Cruz “the biggest liar in politics.” Another noted that he’s now had to apologize to Rubio and Ben Carson: “No wonder he has lost evangelical support.”

At this critical moment in the 2016 race, the Tyler saga offered up a split-screen moment that showed two candidacies headed in seemingly different directions. Rubio's campaign spent Monday touting 12 new endorsements from senators, members of Congress and state-level Republicans. Cruz, meanwhile, spent another day doing damage control and attempting to fight off his biggest self-imposed negative, the "liar" label that his rivals have been applying for weeks.

"They needed a scapegoat," said one unaligned GOP strategist, who added that "Tyler pushed it too far, especially with attacks on Cruz for playing dirty resonating."

Tyler joined Cruz’s team a year ago after working for years for Newt Gingrich and had been a central part of a communications team that helped vault Cruz from being viewed as an also-ran at the beginning of the 2016 campaign to one of its finalists.

Tyler had moved to Houston, where he shared an apartment with another of Cruz’s senior advisers, to press Cruz’s case. Known for his long hours and quick wit, Tyler was also a shoot-from-the-hip spokesman serving a notoriously cautious candidate, and has gotten out over his skis before.

Last month, he pre-butted Sarah Palin’s Trump endorsement, saying it would be a blow to her if she endorsed Trump, creating an embarrassing moment for Cruz, who had to publicly stress that he liked and respected her regardless of her decision.

Tyler had also been vocal over the weekend in raising expectations for the March 1 contests, even as Cruz himself began to tamp down his prospects.

Tyler’s firing comes after a brutal week for Cruz, in which he lost South Carolina to Donald Trump by double-digits and finished narrowly behind Rubio, as well.

Even as Cruz stood in front of backdrops that declared “TrusTED,” Trump and Rubio lambasted him for being a “liar” and for his campaign’s “dirty tricks.”

Cruz’s trustworthiness became the center of the attacks on him in South Carolina, as he was hammered for undisclosed robo-calls and using Photoshop to manufacture a photo of Rubio and President Obama.

Tyler initially told reporters Cruz’s campaign “wouldn’t use a photo that is not authentic,” even though it turned out that it had.

As for his final controversial posting, Tyler apologized on Facebook shortly after 1 a.m. Monday, and was on Fox News later in the morning, trying to undo the damage.

Indeed, Tyler continued to campaign for Cruz until the end, posting pro-Cruz materials on on Twitter and Facebook at 2:25pm, about one hour before his sacking, which came just as he was scheduled to appear on MSNBC.

Rubio’s campaign quickly issued a statement that aimed to keep the blame for the unethical tactics on Cruz, not Tyler, who, Rubio spokesman Alex Conant said, “had the unenviable task of working for a candidate willing to do or say anything to get elected.

“There is a culture in the Cruz campaign from top to bottom that no lie is too big and no trick too dirty,” Conant continued.