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Ted Cruz's quick contrition Wednesday night for glib talk about Joe Biden in Southeast Michigan may avert a lasting stain on his presidential campaign, a Washington Post writer suggests.
Cruz reused one of his go-to cracks about Biden (video below) on the eve of a funeral for the vice-president's son Beau, a brain cancer victim.
The Texas senator, who apologized an hour later on social media, ignored a belief among "political operatives and strategists that apologies only extend a story, spurring stories about the mistake, the apology, the quality of the apology and the subsequent public reaction," Post reporter Janell Ross says in a blog post.
Cruz said simply what so many others have not.
It was a mistake. I'm sorry. Enough said.
Good on him.
This is atop Policy Mic coverage today fro,m New York.
Less charitable reactions come Thursday from Policy Mic, a Manhattan-based news and commentary site, and Wonkette, a liberal blog where Kaili Joy Gray says Ross' "good on him" praise is misplaced:
"Yeah, takes a real big man — who talks incessantly about his faith, which we’ve heard is about kindness and compassion, but maybe we’re wrong about that — to recycle a joke about a man who is grieving his son who just died and then say 'Oops, sorry about that. My bad.' ”
At Policy Mic, staff writer Natasha Noman posts:
Cruz's blunder has the potential to permanently mar his image and campaign. Only time will tell how much damage he has done and whether he can recover.
Cruz has taken at least one lesson from this: It's never appropriate to ridicule someone during their period of mourning, particularly when a parent is grieving the loss of their child, no matter how politically advantageous it may seem.
At The New York Times opinion page, coincidentally, six political types today address the question of campaign trail gaffes in a package prepared before Cruz's misstep.
In an added coincidence., one commentator is Christine O’Donnell, a Delaware Republican who unsuccessfully challenged Biden for his Senate seat in 2008 (when he also ran for vice-president
"Direct communication between a candidate and the electorate diffuses the [media and political] echo-chamber," she says. Cruz did that late Wednesday, apologizing on Facebook and Twitter.
Original article, Wednesday night:
In politics, as in life, timing is critical. Dignity also ranks right up there.
Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz, a first-term U.S. senator from Texas, aimed a sharp-edged laugh line at Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday night at a campaign stop in Howell.
A Detroit News reporter was at the Livingston County event:
"Vice President Joe Biden," @TedCruz says to faint laughter. "You know the nice thing? You don't need a punch line." #JoeBiden
— Chad Livengood (@ChadLivengood) June 3, 2015
“Honestly, it works,” Cruz added, Livengood writes at his paper's website. “The next party you’re at, just walk up to someone and say, ‘Vice President Joe Biden’ and just close your mouth. They will crack up laughing."
Cruz was the keynote speaker for the Livingston County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day dinner at Crystal Gardens banquet center in Howell.
When I asked @tedcruz "why'd you tell a joke about the vice president tonight?" the Texas senator turned and walked away. #BeauBiden #netDE
— Chad Livengood (@ChadLivengood) June 4, 2015
@sqwerin It sounded rehearsed. There was another part where he said if you walk up to someone and say "Joe Biden" they start laughing.
— Chad Livengood (@ChadLivengood) June 4, 2015
The "humor"comes a night before Biden will bury his son, Beau, who died Saturday from brain cancer.
An hour after Livengood's widely retweeted first item, the senator reacted on Facebook and Twitter:
It was a mistake to use an old joke about Vice President Biden during his time of grief, and I sincerely apologize: https://t.co/pkcTLcXSP7
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 4, 2015
His Facebook post adds: "The loss of his son is heartbreaking and tragic, and our prayers are very much with the Vice President and his family."
While backers on social media praise his contrition, other decry the slip -- which is reported nationally by ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, USA Today, the Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the Dallas Morning News, Huffington Post, Yahoo News, AOL News, Politico, The Hill and the Daily Kos blog, among others.
"Ted Cruz Mocks Joe Biden The Day Before He’s Burying His Son" says a headline at ThinkProgress.org, a liberal news site. "Cruz has told this joke before, on multiple occasions," Judd Legum writes there in a post shared more than 1,300 times. "Cruz apparently did not feel the need to alter his routine in light of the tragic death of Biden’s 46-year-old son."
The News writer's original tweet has been retweeted 240 times in two hours.
Related content at Deadline:
Ted Cruz Political Potshots Fly Both Ways -- Did You Hear These?, June 4
