Ted Cruz's Final Message To Iowa: I Hate You As Much As Everybody Hates Me

NOPE!

Everyone, get ready to make your surprise faces, because Ted Cruz did something assholish. WE KNOW, we didn't believe it either for a second! There are reports coming out of Iowa about a rudely misleading mailer sent by the Cruz campaign, to peer-pressure average voters to stop masturbating to sex thoughts about the Iowa State Fair Butter Cow, and instead come out and do caucus love to Cruz. And guess what? The mailer is bullshit and mean and bad:

Mailers labeled with the phrase “voting violation” were sent to some Iowa voters, according to a report from the Independent Journal. The mailers list a voting score for the recipients and some neighbors — they call the scores “public record” — and urge Iowans to caucus Monday to improve their scores. [...]

“Accusing citizens of Iowa of a ‘voting violation’ based on Iowa caucus participation, or lack thereof, is false representation of an official act,” [Iowa Republican Secretary of State Paul] Pate said. “There is no such thing as an election violation related to frequency of voting. Any insinuation or statement to the contrary is wrong, and I believe it is not in keeping in the spirit of the Iowa caucuses.”

Look at this shit. Would this encourage you to drop everything and go vote for Ted Cruz?

[contextly_sidebar id="CQRWxUAMTgjRX69q3oaFSvWh74BPLjmI"]As the Iowa secretary of state explained, there is no such thing as an "election violation," and Iowans do not get in big trouble mister for failing to show up to vote. Which is good, considering how the fucked-up timing of the caucuses means MANY Iowans won't be able to show up anyway. Hell, Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst can't make it to caucus, and no, you assholes, it's not because she's going to be too busy washing her hair while wearing bread bags for shoes and snipping a hog's testiculars with her bare hands. It's because of the weather, and she has to go back to DC. (Or maybe it IS the thing about the hogs and the breadbags and the media is a LIAR.)

Moreover, it seems the "scores" listed for you and your Iowan friends and neighbors are completely 100% made up, according to a political scientist who spoke to The New Yorker and Mother Jones, and whose mailer is pictured above.

So Ted Cruz isn't just being a fucking dick, he's being a LYING fucking dick, telling people their neighbors are losers who can't be bothered to vote with a fake statistic that is fake.

As Matt Baume at The Stranger details, there IS a psychological theory the Cruz mailers are based loosely on, and it's called "norm compliance." The idea is that if folks know in a very public way that their neighbors and friends are Doing A Thing, they will be much more likely to Do That Thing themselves.

[contextly_sidebar id="EvUYVb28czlHahoexF5TZjehXUljtHI0"]Unfortunately, Ted Cruz is an asshole, so he of course did "norm compliance" in the shittiest way possible:

It seems that the Cruz campaign might've inadvertently skipped past "norm compliance" and accidentally triggered a different phenomenon: "reactance," which is what happens when you feel like someone's trying to pressure you and you defiantly adopt a contrary position.

[contextly_sidebar id="yd4af1047xqSzg9QzMDAiChpslGKOqRp"]Usual behavior for Cruz. Remember, this is the guy who said he wouldn't spoil Star Wars , and immediately proceeded to spoil Star Wars. This is the guy who thought it would be a real cool idea to shit all over Jimmy Carter, the day after Carter announced his brain cancer. And LOL, who can ever forget the time he made "jokes" about Joe Biden, the very week Joe's son Beau had died?

Now, it IS weird that he's being a turd-licking cum-stain on the pimply armpit of humanity toward people who might be HIS OWN VOTERS. But he can't control how big of an asshole he is.

Is he sorry? Pffffffft:

"I will apologize to no one for using every tool we can to encourage Iowa voters to come out and vote," Cruz told reporters in Sioux City.

The good news is that maybe (MAYBE!) Iowans will all hate him now like everybody else does, and tell him to get bent in the caucuses. Like this lady:

Donna Holstein ... was upset to learn that she had been given a failing grade and that her neighbors might be told whether she participates in the caucus. She told me that she has voted consistently but that she can’t this time because of a disability.

“I’m crippled, so I can’t go to the caucus,” Holstein said. She was not happy about being shamed in front of her neighbors. “That’s what you call a bully,” she said about Cruz’s tactics. “I wish he would quit.”

So do we, Donna. So do we.

[ Des Moines Register / The New Yorker / Mother Jones / The Stranger ]