Posted on 12/12/2015 8:38:00 AM PST by Isara
Current GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump levied a personal attack against fellow Republican Ted Cruz at an Iowa campaign rally Friday night, disparaging the Texas Senator’s Cuban ancestry while questioning Cruz’s Christianity.
Cruz has been soaring in recent national polls and is now seen by many as the favorite to win Iowa, a state that has the first official test of voters and has a high number of traditional values-based evangelical voters.
“We’re doing really well with evangelicals,” Trump argued. “And by the way, and again, I do like Ted Cruz, but not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba, in all fairness. It’s true. Not a lot come out. But I like him nevertheless,” Trump claimed.
Last month, when Dr. Ben Carson temporarily passed the real estate tycoon and reality TV star in one Iowa poll, Trump said that Carson was suffering from a "pathological disease" that is comparable to a "child molester," while calling the voters of Iowa “stupid.”
Yesterday, Ted Cruz garnered the support of influential Christian conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats, President and CEO of Family Leader, seen as a major win for Cruz.
Friday morning, Donald Trump gave a hint that he may be getting ready to start slinging mud, with the bombastic billionaire tweeting that “it will be easy” to defeat Ted Cruz.
Previously, Trump has delivered an onslaught of personal attacks, non-related to any stance on issues, against virtually every other candidate. Jeb Bush and Ben Carson were labeled by Trump as being "low energy" and "even lower energy," respectively while Carly Fiorina's face was ridiculed by Trump as being unpresidential. Lindsey Graham had his personal cell phone number given out to reporters at a Trump press conference.
However, questioning Ted Cruz’s ability to be an evangelical just because his father, Pastor Rafael Cruz, who is an evangelical minister and a powerful example of the American Dream and an example of what immigration is supposed to look like in the United States, immigrated to the United States, is immature and desperate at best and extremely mean-spirited and unpresidential at worst.
Pastor Rafael Cruz escaped Fidel Castro’s communist Cuba and came to America in 1957 on a student visa with one hundred dollars sewn into his underwear. His first job was making 50 cents an hour as a dishwasher.
In 1980, the elder Cruz was a grassroots activist for Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign, a time when Donald Trump may have still been a liberal Democrat and was beginning to buy off Democrat politicians for business favors.
For Trump, whose personal insults are anything but Christ-like, to question anyone’s Christianity, is shameful, despicable and should be utterly condemned by all.
Trump’s Obama-like ego will not allow him to apologize or ask for forgiveness. After all, Trump admitted that he has never even asked God for forgiveness.
In July, at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, Trump was asked by pollster Frank Luntz if he’d ever sought God’s forgiveness.
“I’m not sure I have ever asked God’s forgiveness. I don’t bring God into that picture,” Trump answered.
What kind of Christian, as Trump purports to be, has never asked God for forgiveness? The answer is that it is impossible to be a Christian without asking Jesus Christ to forgive your sins.
If anyone should have their Christianity questioned, it’s Donald Trump. Maybe he’s projecting.
Sorry I confused you for a Trump supporter - I shouldn’t have been so quick to assume that.
As to your second point, I have watched the clip of Trump saying “...I do like Ted Cruz, but not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba...†Trump said this right after emphasizing that he was an evangelical. He clearly seemed to be trying to get the audience to believe that Cruz couldn’t be a true evangelical since he came from Cuba. I am assuming that this was a veiled catholic bash - it was a little weird.
If you want ‘electability’ go shill for rubio, because the exact same argument applies to cruz. Talk about hypocrisy. Trump could at least motivate blue dogs and unions, trump might have a hard time in mexifornia, but cruz would wipe out the republicans in all blue states.
I think what Trump was getting at is most Cubans are Catholic which is true.
Oh give it up. Cubans are overwhelmingly Catholic not evangelical. That was what Trump was alluding to. And you know it.
Neither Cruz nor Rubio’s negatives are anywhere as high as Trump’s. What makes you think that blue-collar Reagan Democrats won’t go for Cruz given his background?
Donald Trump isn’t any religion. He’s just a symbol of the “old American” ethnoculture and that’s all most conservatives seem concerned about . . . unfortunately.
Cruz is calling for privatizing social security, etc. far more extreme than Reagan, not even comparable. Cruz is more like Goldwater. Plus, Reagan was attractive due to his willingness to fight the USSR and supported strong national security (on nsa spying, etc.), Cruz is closer to Rand’s isolationism and national security positions.
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