4 ms·

> The payments — to support both Cruz and Fiorina — have added to the air of mystery around Mercer. Is he motivated purely by conservative ideology? Or is there

> The payments — to support both Cruz and Fiorina — have added to the air of mystery around Mercer. Is he motivated purely by conservative ideology? Or is there something more, such as translating his big-data expertise into campaigning? Cruz is building an aggressive voter targeting operation, bringing in a pro-Republican company specializing in personality profiling that has been paid millions by Mercer-backed political committees. He supports the Club for Growth, NRA, American Crossroads, and GOP Congressional candidates and has since he became wealthy. Its pretty clear its purely ideological. I'm not sure why he is considered a "mysterious reclusive" type figure given he has been doing so for nearly a decade. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/11/heres-who-pays-the-bills-for-ted-cruzs-crusade/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/11/he... http://blog.oregonlive.com/mapesonpolitics/2010/10/wealthy_financier_is_mysteriou.html http://blog.oregonlive.com/mapesonpolitics/2010/10/wealthy_f... He might have been "mysterious" 5-6 years ago when he had only done a couple of things but at this point? Really?

protomyth 11y ago
The article is also odd that it says "The role of a multimillionaire bolstering Cruz’s candidacy stands out in part because of an apparent contradiction." There are plenty anti-establishment donors in the party, plus it ignores an important part of Republican party history (Goldwater for example) and how patron-style donors effect change in the party. I would say the article uses a lot of loaded words to try to create controversy and contradiction where none exists.
- fweespeech 11y ago
  > I would say the article uses a lot of loaded words to try to create controversy and contradiction where none exists. Yeah. They are trying to be clickbait-y and ignore the substance that actually exists. [e.g. The influence of patron-style donations]
  - protomyth 11y ago
    Patron-style donations have a very interesting history in American politics and its a true shame that a journalist didn't take the time to recount some of that history instead of going for clickbait. I guess I can understand some of it, since patron-style donations are often done as a counter to the power and money of newspapers and later TV.
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
Cruz has been pretty easy meat for some of the sharper anti-Right political journalists - the parody writes itself. So I have to wonder how effective any analytics are. From experience, it's easy to delude yourself into thinking you can do linguistic analysis without being an actual linguist.

protomyth 11y ago

The article is also odd that it says "The role of a multimillionaire bolstering Cruz’s candidacy stands out in part because of an apparent contradiction." There are plenty anti-establishment donors in the party, plus it ignores an important part of Republican party history (Goldwater for example) and how patron-style donors effect change in the party. I would say the article uses a lot of loaded words to try to create controversy and contradiction where none exists.

fweespeech 11y ago
> I would say the article uses a lot of loaded words to try to create controversy and contradiction where none exists. Yeah. They are trying to be clickbait-y and ignore the substance that actually exists. [e.g. The influence of patron-style donations]
- protomyth 11y ago
  Patron-style donations have a very interesting history in American politics and its a true shame that a journalist didn't take the time to recount some of that history instead of going for clickbait. I guess I can understand some of it, since patron-style donations are often done as a counter to the power and money of newspapers and later TV.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

Cruz has been pretty easy meat for some of the sharper anti-Right political journalists - the parody writes itself. So I have to wonder how effective any analytics are. From experience, it's easy to delude yourself into thinking you can do linguistic analysis without being an actual linguist.