CORN PONE, IOWA — The 2016 presidential race is heating up, and so is the rhetoric from Republican candidates. Over the weekend, President Obama had harsh words of criticism for Republican candidate and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee who made headlines for saying the deal was tantamount to taking “the Israelis and [marching] them to the door of the oven.”
Huckabee of course was evoking imagery of the Holocaust, trying to draw a connection between the Jewish victims of Hitler’s genocide and the Jewish people living in Israel today. President Obama, speaking at a press conference during his trip to Africa said, “The particular comments of Mr. Huckabee are, I think, part of just a general pattern that we’ve seen would be considered ridiculous if it weren’t so sad.” Obama also said he believes the presence of Donald Trump in Republican field is forcing other candidates to make “an effort to push Mr. Trump out of the headlines.” Trump may have influenced Huckabee’s insinuation, but Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) office is blaming Huckabee for its own head-turning Nazi references in regards to the Iran deal.
Speaking after a campaign rally in Corn Pone, Iowa, Sen. Cruz told reporters that he doesn’t think “Huck went far enough, not by a long shot.” According to Cruz, Huckabee underestimated just how devastating the Iran deal is for Israel, by at least one-hundred percent. “Oh, I wouldn’t compare this deal to the Holocaust, “Cruz said continuing., “I’d compare it to multiple holocausts.”
“This deal, in fact, is the same exact thing, the very same thing, as Obama and Kerry doing two holocausts on Israel,” Cruz told reporters. “One holocaust is something this administration can’t even do anymore, and let’s just get everything out into the open shall we,” Cruz asked rhetorically, “I think we all want to know just how much of Benghazi is getting covered up by this historic opportunity for peace and stability in a region our country has done its level best to destabilize for the better part of six decades. We will get to the bottom of that, rest assured.”
Cruz said he opposes this deal so strongly that he will push to add an amendment to it that will only allow the deal to go through if Obama “agrees to defund that socialist overreach of a health care industry subsidy known as the Affordable Care Act, or Obama-No-Cares to you and me.” According to Cruz campaign staffers, the Texas Republican is also planning on handing out bumper stickers that say, “We don’t want your healthcare, we don’t want your nuke deal, we just want a religious based theocracy that somehow also ignores the basic tenets of our religion like taking care of the poor,” though they are a bit concerned that the size of the stickers — which had to accommodate so much text. Another, shorter sticker that just says “Obama = Hitler, Kerry = Goebbels.”
Not be outdone and left out in the cold, former Texas Governor Rick Perry has started handing out cups and five dice to various people he meets along his campaign tour. Perry then ties the cups and dice to his campaign in his stump speech by saying, “Do we want a president in the White House that’ll lead our Jewish friends in Israel to death, just like the Yahtzees did? I didn’t think so, either. So don’t roll the dice on another Democrat. Go with a known commodity, someone you know is going to start a bunch of dumb wars for no reason.”
Not everyone in the GOP field is comfortable with Nazi references and rhetoric however.
“I will not stand here and sully the memory of those who died in the Holocaust by comparing this terrible Iranian nuclear deal to it,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to a crowd in Michigan over the weekend. Continuing, Graham said, “I will stand here and compare the Iranian nuclear deal to the only thing it makes most sense to compare it to — the End of Days. Revelations. Hell and fire and brimstone. The Cubs winning a World Series. Dogs and cats, living together! This deal, I’m trying to say here, is going to trigger Armageddon and the Rapture together to form one super-terrifying calamity — Armarapturegeddon. Mark. my. words.”
Sen. Cruz’s office says that he “will never back down from a game of rhetorical chicken” and that “if it gets him just five more votes, he’ll go around painting Hitler mustaches on every Hillary poster he sees.”
“Comparing your opponent to the Nazis is just good, ol’ fashioned American politicking,” Cruz told the press. “You can castigate me for it all you want, but our voters love that kind of red meat. Because when you can convince them that someone who happens to think we should spend more money healing the sick and less money lining the pockets of the rich are also vile, insidious, genocidal Nazis, you can get those people to vote against their best interests over, and over and over again. And that my friends, is what American conservatism is all about. God Bless The Free Markets, God Bless the Republican Party, and God Bless Me, Ted Cruz, a little more than the rest of you.”
