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Carson accuses Cruz camp of spreading false rumors on campaign suspension

February 02, 2016
FoxNews.com


Dr. Ben Carson slams Ted Cruz's Iowa victory

Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson on Tuesday pointedly accused Ted Cruz’s campaign of spreading false rumors during the Iowa caucuses claiming the retired neurosurgeon was suspending his bid, in a coordinated effort to seal Cruz’s victory Monday night.

The stunning charge came as a Carson spokesman declared, “There has never been a more tainted victory in the Iowa caucuses.”

Early reports that Carson – who was directly competing with Cruz for social conservative and evangelical supporters – was leaving the campaign trail started to surface as caucusing began Monday evening.

Upon hearing reports that their candidate was leaving the trail to return to his home in Florida, Team Carson responded swiftly, saying the retired neurosurgeon was only going home for clean clothes but was then headed to New Hampshire for the Feb. 9 primary.

But Carson told Fox News Tuesday morning that Cruz supporters and representatives took that narrative a step further, and began telling caucus-goers at “many” precincts that he was dropping out.

The retired neurosurgeon, interviewed on “Fox & Friends,” said that his supporters were told “voting for me was wasting their vote, and that they should reconsider.”

On Tuesday morning, Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler tried to defend their campaign, telling MSNBC that the campaign simply repeated what Carson had said: that after Iowa, he was returning to Florida for a couple of days, then going to Washington for the National Prayer Breakfast.

“That told us he was not going to New Hampshire,” Tyler said. “That was not a dirty trick.”

Carson ended up finishing a distant fourth in Iowa, with 9 percent, while Cruz claimed a big victory over Donald Trump. Cruz, a Texas senator, had 28 percent, and Trump had 24 percent. How much the drop-out rumors may have affected that count is unclear. But the interactive caucus process does offer an opportunity for supporters of one candidate to be persuaded to change sides before casting their ballot.

The usually mild-mannered Carson accused the other side of using the process to execute “dirty tricks.”

“It’s the exact thing the American people are tired of,” he said. “Why would we want to continue with this kind of shenanigans?”

He said his suspicions were also confirmed by tweets, “other correspondence,” and a first-hand experience by his wife at a precinct.

Carson said his wife Candy arrived at the precinct to learn that a Cruz supporter was “disseminating” the misinformation and was asked to set straight the record.

“She did, and we won that precinct,” he said.

One of the tweets, Carson noted, came from Rep. Steve King, a Cruz supporter and an influential Iowa Republican.
The tweet: sent at 8:20pm: Carson looks like he is out. Iowans need to know before they vote. Most will go to Cruz, I hope.

Carson said if Cruz was unaware of the tactics, then he should find out who was involved and fire them. And if Cruz knew about the effort, he should admit his involvement and “offer a solution,” Carson said.

The Cruz campaign is also taking heat for a “mailer” it sent out to potential voters before caucus night that seemingly accused them of voting violations.

Tyler earlier told MSNBC that Iowans are used to getting similar ones and that the campaign “modeled ours after them.”

"Politics"

as usual.

Geno

PS, do folks really expect ANY of them to "play fair"?

this is politics.

It won't be the last thing like this the Cruz campaign does in an attempt to win.

Actually, it's a federal crime.

Maybe he is establishing his bona fides with the Dems for the General.

It's all over the cable news networks and ever Rush Limbaugh was talking about what a dirty trick it was.

This is going to become a never ending story, especially since the main person it helps is Rubio.

Which part exactly is a federal crime?

Absolutely splendid

This looks worse than it is, although sometimes, that's all it takes to kill a campaign. Look at Howard Dean's famous screech rant- dead overnight. The bottom line is that if there was any question about the validity of this, would a Carson person take Ted Cruz's team mates word for it? That would be kind of stupid. If I was a Carson fan and I saw this tweet, I would ask myself, "why didn't I hear from the Carson camp about this?" Or I would simply ask for confirmation before changing my vote.

Cruz is a career politician who is hated by everyone no shocker here.

That's very possible.

Cruz just couldn't keep his sneaky, back stabbing nature hidden,...and it's going to cost him.

For Ben Carson to come out of his coma long enough to open his eyes and make a statement condemning Cruz, it has to be dirty.

Cruz is gonna get gut stabbed if he pisses Carson off.

In all seriousness, Carson doesn't strike me as the type to speak out something like this until he felt it was pretty underhanded.

Ever since he has started campaigning for potus he has been nothing but extremely honorable.

Cruz is a lying stack of chit politician....Puckingg Rino...

The Cruzettes ain't gonna like this, nope, not one bit!

Waah...

So Carson did leave for home and isn't headed right to New Hampshire instead to DC. The Cruz campaign simply stated what has ended up happening. Carson wasn't going to be viable last night or in the future. This was, is and will be a 3 man race moving forward. Yes I like Ben Carson but reality is reality.

Look be careful automatically saying this was malicious keep mind a campaign has a lot of moving parts. I think it would be easy to think this about Carson after hearing his future plans. That conclusion got exaggerated by campaign workers excited about their candidate.

More chickenCruz bullCruz.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/201...cruz-camp-of-foul-play-at-iowa-caucuses/

The Cruz camp sent this out at 7:01 PM.

“To have campaigns come out and send emails to their caucus speakers suggesting that Dr. Carson was doing anything but moving forward after tonight is the lowest of low in American politics,” said Carson campaign manager Ed Brookover.

** Rep. Steve King (R-IA) who was campaigning with Ted Cruz today tweeted this out during the caucuses tonight.

"Carson looks like he is out. Iowans need to know before they vote. Most will go to Cruz, I hope." https://t.co/lW5Js50EMA

— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) February 2, 2016

And the Cruz campaign sent out this message despite the fact that the Carson rumor had already been denied by the Carson team.

ChickenCruz initially denied this had happened, of course.

When confronted with the truth, Chickencruz "apologized".

But hey, he did what he had to do, like always.