His administration continues to operate under a 'Bridgegate' cloud: At least two aides have been indicted in an alleged scheme to shut down lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge as political retribution for a mayor who refused to endorse the governor's re-election. That includes the post-9/11 criminal prosecutions of terror suspects that made his reputation as a hard-charger.Īchilles heel: Christie is often accused of embracing an ego-driven and needlessly abrasive style.
Seton Hall University.įamily: Married to Mary Pat Foster (1986) with four children.Ĭlaim to fame: Pugnacious and unapologetic, Christie once told a heckler to 'sit down and shut up' and brings a brash style to everything he does. Former statehouse lobbyist.Įducation: B.A. Former Morris County freeholder and lobbyist. His last name could also be a liability with voters who fear establishing a family dynasty in the White House. He is also one of just two GOP candidates who is fluent in Spanish.Īchilles heel: Bush has angered conservatives with his permissive positions on illegal immigration (saying some border-crossing is 'an act of love) and common-core education standards. Bush was number 43.Ĭlaim to fame: Jeb was an immensely popular governor with strong economic and jobs credentials. Bush was the 41st President of the United States, and his brother George W. Bush was elected Texas land commissioner in 2014. Noelle Bush has made news with her struggle with drug addiction, and related arrests. University of Texas at Austin.įamily: Married to Columba Bush (1974), with three adult children. Former co-chair of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy.Įducation: B.A. Résumé: Former Florida governor and secretary of state. 'The Post saying the kids are "fair game" is even worse,' he added. Rubio rushed to Cruz's defense Tuesday night on Twitter, calling the cartoon 'disgusting.' The video ran as an ad during Iowa broadcasts of 'Saturday Night Live' last week.įlorida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, on the other hand, has largely kept his young children out of sight, resisting the temptation to make them part of his presidential push. He released a parody video this month in which he reads a spoof of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' to them, focusing on left-versus-right political squabbles. 'The liberal media has hit a new low with a tasteless attack on my children,' the email read, calling the cartoon 'a blatant exposure of the left's double standard towards anything and anyone with whom they disagree.'Ĭruz does put his daughters, 7-year-old Caroline and 4-year-old ont-and-center on the campaign trail and on the Internet. His campaign also launched an 'emergency contribution' fundraising email seeking $1 million to 'fend off this most vicious personal attack on my daughters.' Stick w/ attacking me-Caroline & Catherine are out of your league.' 'But when a politician uses his children as political props, as Ted Cruz recently did in his Christmas parody video in which his eldest daughter read (with her father’s dramatic flourish) a passage of an edited Christmas classic, then I figure they are fair game,' she added.ĭOUBLE STANDARD? Obama's campaigns and his White House have leveraged Sasha and MaliaĬruz wasted no time pushing back, tweeting: 'Classy. Hiatt also removed an essay from the Post's website that accompanied Telnaes' cartoon, in which she defended her decision to break 'an unspoken rule in editorial cartooning that a politician’s children are off-limits.' 'I understand why Ann thought an exception to the policy was warranted in this case, but I do not agree.' I failed to look at this cartoon before it was published,' Post editor Fred Hiatt wrote on Tuesday. 'It’s generally been the policy of our editorial section to leave children out of it. The Post retracted the cartoon, which also showed Cruz as an organ grinder holding the monkeys' leashes, hours after putting it online.Īnn Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, defended her decision to mock Cruz and his children with the controversial artwork, but her editor wrote that the only reason the cartoon was published was that he never saw it beforehand. 'Don't mess with my kids, don't mess with Marco's kids, don't mess with Hillary's kids, don't mess with anybody's kids. 'It used to be for a long time, the rules across the board – that kids were off limits. But my girls didn't sign up for that.'Ĭruz has put his kids front-and-center during some campaign events but said Wednesday that being away from them for days at a time was the hardest thing about running for president. Folks want to attack me? Knock yourself out. "Everyone expects the mainstream media to be liberal, to be biased. FRONT AND CENTER: Cruz has made his young daughters a part of his campaign, including a parody video that ran last week as an ad during 'Saturday Night Live' in the early voting state of Iowa