He said he was a blogger, which is how he ended up behind the media risers at the New York Women’s National Republican Club.
Later, when the security staff had moved away, he admitted that he wasn’t who he said he was: he was a supporter of Sen. Ted Cruz.
It’s not like Manhattan is swarming with them: Polls have Donald Trump leading by double digits in the Republican presidential primary, not to mention Democratic voter registration outnumbers Republican registration approximately 7:1 on the island.
The Cruz supporter — Isaac Baskin, 23 — wanted to be as close to the senator as possible during a campaign event on Wednesday. It worked: Baskin successfully got a selfie with Cruz as he was waiting to be introduced (see above).
Baskin, a student at Cardozo School of Law who has been involved in conservative campaigns and politics for years, says he supports Cruz because he is uncompromisingly conservative.
Cruz will need all the support he can get from voters like Baskin if he is to make New York Republicans abandon its hometown mogul.
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of
Republican candidates may fundraise in New York City, but the home of New York Values isn’t where the party’s base lives. Cruz’s two-day trip to town demonstrates how New York could play a bigger role in this year’s Republican primaries.
As GOP establishment figures do the once-unthinkable and rally behind Cruz — Jeb! — the #DumpTrump strategy relies on denying Trump the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination outright. That means a delegate-by-delegate battle in every state, including New York, which holds its primary on April 19.
Most of New York’s delegates are awarded proportionally in each of the state’s 27 congressional districts. With that setup, Cruz might be able to pick off delegates one or two at a time in conservative sections of the city and suburbs, farther from Trump’s upstate base.
Here, voters who are isolated in their conservatism and drawn to vote in a Republican primary might be particularly conservative, or particularly religious — gravitating more to the strong conservative values of Cruz, instead of the ambiguous positions of Trump (to put it generously).
The audience in Midtown was just that clientele — well-dressed professionals packed into the elegant club. Certainly more ties and wristwatches than at a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Baskin said that growing up Republican in New York — he’s a Long Island native — meant being forced to hone your message, after getting “left wing left wing all day.”
About those values. . .
Cruz’s hope is that there will be enough strict conservatives (for whom a candidate like Ohio Gov. John Kasich has little appeal) to compete in a few congressional districts over Trump.
The senator did his best to tailor his stump speech for a New York City audience — the only New York values he attacked were those of Mayor Bill de Blasio, no friend of city Republicans.
Cruz managed to deliver the line “God bless the great state of New York,” with a mostly straight face. He called the NYPD officers who turned their backs on de Blasio after the death of two officers in 2014 “heroes.”
He gave his usual strident defense of the constitution and freedom and received a standing ovation for his unambiguous position on Israel, as opposed to Trump’s deal-making.
His fellow “courageous conservatives” cheered him throughout, as he trashed the mayor and president, lead-from-behind progressives.
Then they left the club and went out into the liberal city, where they were once again a small minority.
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