AP Tilt: 'Cruz Embraces Supporters' on 'Far-Right Fringe'

February 9th, 2016 4:53 PM

Senior citizens remember the Associated Press as a pithy, objective wire service, not a shop that sounds like a Starbucks circle of liberal editorial writers. On Sunday, AP ran a story headlined “Cruz embraces supporters on fringe of GOP.” Even as socialist Bernie Sanders wanders the hustings polarizing our politics by saying Wall Street is “based on fraud,” AP reporters Scott Bauer and Steve Peoples devoted an entire dispatch to Cruz’s fringy backers: 

PETERBOROUGH, N.H. (AP) — Some politicians run from polarizing endorsements. Ted Cruz seeks them out.

The Texas senator's strength in the 2016 Republican presidential primary is drawn, at least in part, from the backing of high-profile figures from his party's far-right fringe. They are people, like his national co-chairman Iowa Rep. Steve King, who may be popular among the passionate conservatives who usually decide primary contests, but could turn off the swing voters and independents who typically decide general elections.

King is a leading voice on immigration, having compared those who cross the border illegally to drug mules and livestock. Cruz has also embraced endorsements from an evangelical leader who described Hitler as a hunter of Jews sent by God, and B-list entertainers like Phil Robertson, the anti-gay patriarch of the Louisiana duck hunting family featured on the popular cable show Duck Dynasty.

By this standard, reality-TV star Donald Trump is also a "B-list entertainer." Speaking of B-listers, Bernie Sanders has Sarah Silverman, Lizz Winstead, and Susan Sarandon. Hillary Clinton has Lena Dunham and RuPaul. Can we bet AP will drag out the most extreme-sounding outbursts from these leftist celebrities? Let's bet on a big fat No. 

Bauer and Peoples then turn to the candidates who pandering to liberal journalists by underlining their “extremist” tropes: 

Former New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Fergus Cullen, who last week endorsed Ohio Gov. John Kasich, described Cruz backers as "a collection of misfits." He called King "my least favorite member of Congress."

"His rhetoric on immigration has been appalling," Cullen said.

Yet Cruz, who infuses his pitch to voters with readings from scripture and exhortations to "awaken the body of Christ," is betting that aligning himself with the stars of his most conservative wing will ultimately deepen his base of support in the primary election and November's general election alike.

That helps explain why Cruz called Robertson a "joyful, cheerful, unapologetic voice of truth." Robertson faced a backlash for declaring in 2014 that gays are sinners and that African-Americans were happy under Jim Crow laws.

Cruz also celebrates the backing of Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an organization the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled as a hate group largely because of its anti-gay positions. The organization remains influential and well-respected among social conservatives.

Memo to AP: Never condemn a group as "extreme" or based on "hate" by citing the Southern Poverty Law Center. As you conveniently forget, an assassin entered the FRC's headquarters carrying a "hate map" from the SPLC. Their spokesmen -- especially Mark Potok -- like to compare the Tea Party "backlash" to classic American resistance to end of slavery and the beginning of female suffrage.

As Tom Blumer noted in early January, AP has let Bauer loose to slap Cruz around with purple verbiage about his aggressive demeanor: 

Ted Cruz's reputation as an arrogant, grating, in-your-face ideologue has dogged him throughout the Republican presidential race. But it hasn't stopped the Texas senator's rise.

Cruz is increasingly embracing his irascible persona, trying to turn what could be a liability into an asset.

... Foreign Policy magazine once described him as "the human equivalent of one of those flower-squirters that clowns wear on their lapels."

As if Foreign Policy magazine isn't just like a liberal editorial page, as the quote makes apparent. They attacked Cruz three months in to his Senate term.

So isn't Bernie Sanders on a "far-left fringe"? Scott Bauer wrote a story on the socialist's visit to Madison last summer. The headline was "In Wisconsin, Sanders appeals to like-minded liberals."