Digging the Political Grave

Senator Ted Cruz ran a masterfully tactical campaign in the closing days leading up to the Iowa Caucus. In fact, he ran a great campaign literally hours leading up to the casting of the first votes. An APN tweet from last week noted that Senator Rubio acts like he wants the Presidency the most, but Cruz is truly the one playing the game the best at this point.

Ground game, fundraising machine, and Iowa Caucus momentum aside, Cruz is on a different level than the rest of the candidates right now in the GOP field. Mr. Trump can bring the crowds and Governor Bush can lean on Right to Rise Super PAC, but their failures lie in their reliance on words. Cruz's multidimensional game includes actions that potentially no other candidate is readily conversant in so far.

However, Cruz's recent actions are tactically brilliant yet strategically short-sighted.

Since becoming very competitive with Mr. Trump in the weeks prior to the Iowa Caucus spanning into the hours before the initial voting, Cruz's "leak" about the Carson campaign suspension as well as 'Voter Violation' incident has sprung the campaign into a new light. Many of Cruz's competitors are attacking the campaign for dishonest, and Mr. Trump is going as far as calling for a nullification of the results of the Iowa Caucus and have a re-vote. That being said, the Cruz campaign has not done anything illegal and any movement to alter the results now ought to be out of the question.

Cruz is doing what it takes to win and doing it more than anyone else arguably on either side of the aisle. Even more than that, he knows it. Cruz was quoted by CNN as saying "I will apologize to no one for using every tool we can to encourage Iowa voters to come out and vote". The merits of the tactics aside, it is indisputable thus far that they have achieved results. That is the tactically brilliant portion of the argument.

There is an error to these ways though. These tactics largely rely on one thing to absolve the memory of their employment: momentum. In sports, they say that winning cures all ills. Much like in sports, the same applies in the political realm. A candidate can always brush away things he/she did or said when it results in a democratically elected win. At that point, the victories begin to mount and the momentum sweeps prior transgressions under the rug. That's it. That's the nature of this beast, compounded by the nature of a 24-hour news cycle.

But here's the hiccup in the philosophy. Hell hath no fury like a political candidate's supporters scorned. Similar to the hardened supporters of Mr. Trump, Cruz's allegiant supporters will not waiver despite the mounting allegations against the campaign. So, there's always a base for Senator Cruz to rely on. However, as candidates begin dropping out of the race, they remember their wronged candidate. That wronged candidate that was a manifestation of their own hopes and dreams for the country. An attack on their candidate is an inherent attack on them.

So, where do they go? The easy answer is not to Senator Cruz. Realistically, that support gets thrown to whoever is the antithesis to Cruz and who has the ability to defeat him. At this moment, that could very well be Senator Rubio. This is a worst-case scenario for the Cruz's campaign, as the surging Rubio, especially with a possible strong showing in New Hampshire under his belt, beginning to have support coalesce around him from all factions of the Republican party. The establishment is already anti-Cruz, but the supporters of the remaining candidates may also soon have reason to as well.

As the negative attention builds on Cruz's tactics (presuming there is more to follow), generally and newly uncommitted voters weigh two factors heavily as the primary tempo increases: electability and likability. With everything mentioned prior to this statement, the aggregate effect of these tactics, in addition to the media's likely demonization of Cruz will lead voters to feel positively about either that electability or likability, which spells trouble for the currently hot Cruz campaign.

The Iowa hurdle has sense been cleared, and now it's time for the Cruz camp to take a step back and take the long view in order to survive long-term. Relying purely on momentum may not be enough and, even worse, may be naive with just one very close victory in one primary thus far. From the outside looking in, Senator Cruz is in the act of digging a political grave for himself. Everything is still so early and not so far along that the ship cannot be righted, but the true conundrum is the following question. Does an overall strategy shift and denial of the tactics that have gotten him to this point take away from the appeal he has with his base and put a strangle on his ability to operate in the ways he has used to propel him toward the front?