https://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/ted-cruz-and-the-art-of-the-dirty-trick
Ted Cruz and the Art of the Dirty Trick
By Amy Davidson Sorkin
February 4, 2016
“There has never been a more tainted victory in the Iowa caucuses,” a spokesman for Ben Carson’s campaign said on Tuesday. He was referring to what he called Ted Cruz’s “abject lies” and, particularly, to what appears to have been a concerted effort on the part of the Cruz campaign to persuade voters at caucuses that Carson had dropped out. Carson himself told Fox News that his wife had had to personally refute that rumor at one caucus site—and once she had, he said, he won there. "Isn't this the exact kind of thing that the American people are tired of? Why would we want to continue that kind of, you know, shenanigans?” Donald Trump put the charge in his own terms in a tweet: "Ted Cruz didn't win Iowa, he stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad!”
That was only part of what Trump had to say. He threatened to sue Cruz; he made himself the champion of the honor of Ben Carson, a man who Trump has suggested is “pathological.” He tweeted that "the State of Iowa should disqualify Ted Cruz from the most recent election on the basis that he cheated—a total fraud!” Cruz had also sent out a mailer marked “Voter Violation,” which purported to contain information about voters and their neighbors, and was printed on yellow paper to look like a real ticket—which, as Ryan Lizza noted, was just the beginning of its problems. It was a “disgrace,” Trump said, adding what was, for a New York real-estate developer, the ultimate insult: “It looks right out of municipal government.” Cruz tried to dismiss it all as a “Trumpertantrum.” The problem was that, in the whirlwind of Trump’s rage, there were some hard objects swirling around and banging into Cruz’s story. ...
Then, on Monday evening, as the caucuses were assembling, Chris Moody, a CNN reporter, sent out three tweets in the space of two minutes. The first referred to a flight that Carson would be catching that night; the second said that “Carson won't go to NH/SC, but instead will head home to Florida for some R&R. He'll be in DC Thursday for the National Prayer Breakfast.” The third, seconds later, noted that “Ben Carson's campaign tells me he plans to stay in the race beyond Iowa no matter what the results are tonight.” CNN’s on-air report also made it clear that the Florida trip was just a detour. Nevertheless, the Cruz campaign sprung into action and retailed the second tweet, out of context, as news of the suspension of Carson’s campaign. The Cruz camp’s emphasis on quick, sophisticated communications meant that it could send a directive to spread the story to campaign workers in every Iowa precinct, but it also left behind a digital trail of tweets and e-mail alerts. One of the tweets, from Representative Steve King, the campaign’s national co-chair, said, “Carson looks like he is out. Iowans need to know before they vote. Most will go to Cruz, I hope”—and it was sent after the Carson campaign had issued clarifications.
But Carson’s precinct captains, in turn, texted in reports of what they were hearing: dirty tricks are easier to disseminate and to document when everyone has a smartphone. At first, Cruz’s campaign said that Carson’s complaints were “absurd.” Then Cruz apologized to Carson for “a mistake” on the part of some of his staff members, but added that the campaign’s real error was to trust CNN’s report that Carson was “not carrying on” without following up on it. He loved Carson, Cruz said, at a news conference on Wednesday—“I will praise his character”—and everything else was just the media stirring up trouble. “Is it a dirty trick to pass on your news stories? You’re in the business!" Cruz said. With a glint, as if struck by the aptness of his own retort, he added, “Would you think it was a dirty trick if I was forwarding an ABC story? Or is it just a dirty trick to pass on a CNN story?”
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