He's awarded four Pinocchios by the Washington Post for this assertion. Sez the Post:
This was a startling assertion by the GOP presidential hopeful. He used this “undeniable fact” to explain why Democrats support giving the right to vote to convicted felons — “because the Democrats know convicted felons tend to vote Democrat.” He also added that “the media never reports on any of that, doesn’t want to admit any of that.”
When a politician asserts a fact with such certitude, The Fact Checker is always eager to investigate. What’s the basis for Cruz’s claim?
The Facts
Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier did not respond to queries, but Cruz’s campaign staff told CNN that he relied on a study that was published in 2014 by the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and written by University of Pennsylvania professor Marc Meredith and assistant Michael Morse.
This study was featured in a brief article that appeared under this headline in the right-leaning Washington Examiner: “Jail survey: 7 in 10 felons register as Democrats.” But as we always warn politicians, you need to dig behind the headlines and news stories and actually read the studies that are being cited. After all, this study was titled, “Do Voting Rights Notification Laws Increase Ex-Felon Turnout?
From the start, one can see something fishy is going on with Cruz’s claim. The study is a survey of party registration of ex-felons, not people in jail. Moreover, while Cruz spoke of “violent criminals,” not all felonies (such as fraud or drug-related convictions) involve violent acts — and the study did not break down the types of crimes committed by the former prisoners.The authors of this study have come out to say that Cruz is wrong to suggest their study proves what he claims and so, the Post suggests, Cruz is essentially lying.
First of all, but for Cruz mentioning it, many voters wouldn't know that 7 in 10 felons register as Democrats. That's interesting to know and hardly surprising. It isn't shocking that the party of robbing "Peter to pay Paul" would find support among those in our criminal class.
Whether these would-be voters were "violent" felons or not, seems a bit beside the point. Not to the Washington Post fact checker maybe but to many voters who think that giving ex-cons their voting rights back may not be best of ideas.
I find it hard to believe most felons are that interested in voting at all, given that the non-criminal U.S. population can be pretty cavalier about exercising this right too, especially in non-presidential election years.
But I feel pretty comfortable in my belief that whether they actually vote or register to vote, the vast majority of violent criminals are more sympathetic to the Democratic Party than the GOP. After all, Republicans are typically associated with law and order issues, Democrats; civil rights, including prisoners rights. Dems constantly wail about the number of people in prison, calling it mass incarceration. Is it any wonder that people in jail or violent criminals trying to avoid going there would agree with the Dems that locking people up is a bad idea? In New York City it was liberal Democrats who wanted to end "stop and frisk" policing policies that hassled mostly the less law-abiding types in certain neighborhoods. Right or wrong, on which side of this argument do you think violent criminals stand? Here's a hint: It's with the Democrats.
It may be a cheap shot for Cruz to associate violent crime with Democrats but doesn't mean he fundamentally wrong about the reality of the matter. Or that he's lying. The Washington Post can't prove Cruz is wrong, all it can say is that Cruz can't prove that he is right. And so he is lying.
There is, of course, a pretty big difference between being wrong about something and lying about it.
Lying requires the intention to deceive. It requires knowing that what you're saying isn't the truth.
Like when Barack Obama promised the American people that under the Affordable Care Act, if you like your insurance, you can keep it. And if you like your doctor you can keep him. That turned out not to be true. Was the president lying when he said it? I don't know. Maybe he believed everything he said. Though it is just as likely, he knew better and just flat out lied to the American people to get the law passed.
When Hillary Clinton told people that an anti-Muslim video led to a protest that led to an attack on the our ambassador and three others being killed in Libya, was she lying? It certainly appears so, given what she was telling people closest to her on the very night of the attack.
These misrepresentations of the truth, it seems to me, are much more significant than Cruz's assertions about the political leanings of violent criminals.
Democrats have long attempted to smear Republicans as anti-women, anti-black and anti-gay. Many in the media have been complicit in these kinds of smears. But given that journalists and other members of the mainstream media overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates for office, this surprises no one.
It may be why the today's MSM is held in such low regard by the general public.
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