Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz cannot help himself. He cannot help being an asshole.
Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) explained Monday night how his "New York values" attack line helped him triumph over rival Donald Trump in the Iowa caucuses. [...]
"I can't tell you how many New Yorkers tell me, 'I'm a New Yorker and I'm with you. I know exactly what New York values are and I can't stand them,'" Cruz said. "It's the values of the elite liberals that have done enormous damage to New York and [there are] a bunch of cops and firemen and hardworking men and women in the great state of New York who are fed up with the out-of-touch values of Manhattan."
Ah, those elites. How sitting senator and former Supreme Court law clerk Ted Cruz hates them all. But Cruz's theory that his attacks on "New York values" are what boosted his campaign to victory over Donald Trump implies that the fine people of Iowa—a state that continues to employ radical xenophobe Steve King as a congressman—hate New York values even more than they hate Donald Trump's imagined Mexican rapists or Muslim terror babies.
Do they? Hard to say. But Ted Cruz is convinced that it was key to his victory, so that means we can expect he'll be saying it over and over again.