Here is the caption that originally appeared under the photo above: “If Donald Trump is elected president, his wife, Melania, would be the most beautiful and elegant first lady to inhabit the White House since Jackie Kennedy.”
An organization supporting Ted Cruz for president promoted a naked photo of Melania Trump to attack The Donald in Utah. (For the totally inappropriate photo Cruz’s supposedly Christian movement has been plastering all over the country, click here.) The Cruz campaign has said they had nothing to do with it, but this episode of what I am dubbing “The Primary: A Reality Show,” seems as scripted as the rest, so let’s dispense with the denials.
Cruz’s campaign is the most psychologically sophisticated campaign ever run. They know full well calling attention to this kind of sex appeal in America’s future will help Trump, not hurt him. (If they had actually wanted to hurt him, they would have spread around this demonstration of questionable judgment in a picture of Donald and his son at a public event with Melania wearing a transparent dress through which her breast and nipple were completely visible–it’s about context.)
So Cruz might actually be helping Trump. And what is Trump doing? I think he is helping Cruz as well….Trump answered the Cruz attack with a threat to “spill the beans” on Heidi and it looks to me like another case of Trump neutralizing an issue for another candidate. Trump did the same for the Clinton sex scandal (which he was actually a part of!), and Ted’s Canadian birth (which remains mysteriously unvetted by the press).
Lest you wonder why Trump would squander his great campaign on helping the other guys, think of it this way: Trump would have no campaign at all if the media didn’t give him hundreds of millions of dollars of free PR–and no it’s not Trump getting one over on them–it just doesn’t work that way….Here’s how I imagine the pitch might have been framed:
But I digress…Let’s get back to the beans on Heidi….The NYT cites a depressive episode in her marriage. Nice try. The real beans on Heidi are her efforts to erase the borders between Canada, the US and Mexico and Ted’s covering it up….Here’s an introduction to this serious matter. (For Ted’s role, don’t miss the comments section.)
Heidi Cruz wants to build a North American Community – what does that mean, exactly?