Subject: Political Operative who requests anonymity

Background: Operative is familiar with several key players, including Ted Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe

Last week the National Enquirer published a story accusing Texas Senator Ted Cruz of multiple extramarital affairs. The story went viral on social media. Today The Gateway Pundit had a discussion with a political operative who is familiar with several of the key players.

This discussion took place earlier today—–

The Gateway Pundit: What name should we call you? How to refer to you?

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OPERATIVE: I don’t know. Just Operative is fine.

GP: Oh, okay. Operative . . . [indiscernible] Why did you contact The Gateway Pundit?

OPERATIVE: Well, like I told you, I’ve been following the Cruz scandal, alleged scandal, and I have a theory.

GP: Okay. How do you want me to go with this? Is this something you know?

OPERATIVE: Like I said before on the phone, I am trying to fill in the blanks. I have no direct, personal knowledge that my conclusions are true, but comments by Glenn Beck today were sort of the the last puzzle piece, you know, in the theory I worked on over the weekend. It was like a key.

GP: Okay, can you hold on? [garbled] Let’s go back so this makes . . . how do you want to start? With the theory? Or what? I don’t know how to do this.

OPERATIVE: Me either. [laugh] Since we already mentioned the Beck thing, let’s start with that.

GP: Good. Okay, if that makes sense, go ahead.

OPERATIVE: Sure. I think it will. So Glenn Beck said two key things on his radio show today, and he set up an important anchor—what psychologists call an anchor.

GP: Wait. What’s an anchor?

OPERATIVE: Damnit. Maybe I should have given more background. Can I just send you this background, technical stuff?

GP: Why don’t you, is there a lot of it? I mean, is this real technical or what?

OPERATIVE: Not to me it’s not, but maybe to others. Let’s just go. Anchor is a psychological term. Sales people use it all the time. They’ll show you a really big number. Billions and billions served, stuff like that. You’re mind’s now anchored on a big number, so when they ask for two dollars for a burger, it sounds like nothing.

GP: Okay, I get it.

OPERATIVE: Yeah, it’s pretty neat. I know of a study where they had two different menus in the same restaurant. Random. But they tracked which customers got which menu. The menus were exactly the same except for one thing. One menu listed items in a sort of random order or by the type of entrée or whatever. The other menu listed the exact same items, but within each category, appetizer, salads, entrees, deserts, et cetera, everything was listed from the most expensive to the cheapest. They wanted to test how much anchoring worked on a menu since people tend to read from top to bottom.

GP: What happened?

OPERATIVE: People who ordered from the test menu ordered by price spent almost twice as much as the people with the randomly ordered menu. It totally worked.

GP: Wow.

OPERTAIVE: Yeah

GP: Wow. I gotta pay attention to that when I go to a restaurant.

OPERATIVE: Yeah, but very few restaurants do it. Even though this study is about ten years old and anyone can find it on Google, almost no one uses it. Restaurant people think they know best how to order stuff on their menu. Very arrogant and very stupid. They leave a lot of money on the table.

GP: Really. Wow. I’m gonna look next time I go out. [pause]

Operative: Do you . . .

GP: No, go on. So you were talking about Glenn Beck and two things he said.

OPERATIVE: Yeah, two and the anchor. The anchor here is the absurdity. You know, the Enquirer story. Five women, shoving ‘em in closets and on desks or whatever right in the middle of meetings. That’s kind of, that’s, I just don’t see how you hide or how people miss that kind of stuff. That’s Bill Clinton stuff, you know. Sex crazed. And Glenn Beck does this whole I got raped by Ted Cruz bit this morning and everybody on my staff got raped, tasteless stuff.

GP: Yeah, we blogged about that . . .

OPERATIVE: yeah, I know, and that’s the anchor. And Beck doubled down on the anchor, said something about five women in closets and all that like I said, right? And then he sets the anchor really strong with a headline and it worked cause it was the headline you even went with. He said If this is true I’ll drop Ted Cruz like a hot potato.

GP: Yeah. Uh huh.

OPERATIVE: So there’s the hook, the headline, and then he sets expectations. He lowers the bar sort of so to speak. He says something like “Look, if it turns out Cruz had an affair six years ago and came clean and made up with his wife or whatever, then who am I to judge. People make mistakes.”

GP: Yeah. So how does that work then? What’s, how does that go with the anchor?

OPERATIVE: I think Glenn Beck just told the world the real story. There was an affair six years ago. One affair. It’s over now. And the Enquirer story is so over the top that a single affair six years ago will look like, yeah, whatever. It’s a perfect anchor, hook, and low ball. Perfect. It’s what Jeff Roe, his campaign manager, does.

GP: Yeah, Roe. I want to ask you about Roe. You told me before you think Roe probably knew this story before the campaign

OPERATIVE: Before he met Cruz. I think this story was how he talked Cruz into going with him. Remember that story that Roe parked his ass in Cruz’s office and waited forever to get like fifteen minute interview?

GP: I think [talking over]

OPERATIVE: Then Cruz met him for fifteen minutes and ended up cancelling all his appointments and meeting one on one with Roe for hours and came out and announced he was hiring him.

GP: Well, something like. Yeah, maybe not exactly, but yeah.

OPERATIVE: I never bought the line that Roe’s plan was so brilliant that Cruz just had to go with it. I’ve seen too much the way Roe does dirty work. I thought all along Roe had some leverage on Cruz.

GP: You think Roe blackmailed him?

OPERTIVE: Not blackmail, no. More like, “I have this. Others do too. And I’m the only one who will handle it right. You don’t have to go with me, but if you don’t and this gets out, you won’t have me to fix it for you.”

GP: Yeah, that sounds like a threat still. . .

OPERATIVE: Anyway, that’s been my story all along. And now this happens. So the way this all fit my theory. Three of the five women National Enquirer obfuscated have been outed. Two of them have flatly denied that they had an affair with Cruz. The third still has not. Why not? And she’s still working for Carly Fiorina supposedly getting twenty thousand a month. Plus there’s records of additional payments to her from a Carly PAC totaling about a hundred and sixty thousand last year. And right before that, the Carly for America PAC got half a million from Cruz’s Keeping the Promise PAC. That was . . .

GP: Prior to what? [talking over] You said “prior to that.” Prior to what?

OPERATIVE: I don’t remember. Prior to . . . sorry.

GP: That’s okay. Go on.

OPERATIVE: Yeah. Sorry. I should have written this down probably.

GP: You’re fine

OPERATIVE. So this one woman who’s been outed and she’s a public figure has mentioned nothing about the thing. Nothing on her twitter feed. I don’t know if she’s done interviews, but as of this afternoon, zero denial or even mention of anything. She’s still tweeting anti-Trump stuff and pro-Fiorina stuff, but that’s it.

GP: So you think it’s her?

OPERATIVE: Again, I don’t know anything for sure, but it’s really strange that she, I mean, don’t you have to say something? She’s married and her husband’s a lawyer with the government I think. Don’t you think he’d be pissed? Seriously.

GP: Yeah.

OPERATIVE: Okay, so let’s pretend, just for kicks. And this is my theory now with Beck’s missing piece, cornerstone or keystone or whatever. Just here me out here, okay? So Cruz has a fling with someone in politics awhile ago. He breaks it off. This was like 2009, 2010. Heidi finds out. Big fight. But it’s over. They get over it and move on. But there’s a record trail, a paper trail or something. After that, this woman gets married . . .

GP: After what?

OPERATIVE: After the come to Jesus over the affair. This woman gets married in 2011. And I’m sure if she’s the one, this all happened before she got married. Women don’t have affairs right after they get married unless there’s something really, really wrong with her or he’s hitting her or something. Guys, maybe, but not girls. Not in first couple years of marriage anyway.

GP: Okay. Is that it?

OPERATIVE: So there was this affair, and it’s over. This woman can’t work for Ted anymore, obviously, but she’s a political strategist. They make all their money in presidential election years. So come 2015, she gets a job with Carly Fiorina. She’s not a really a Carly girl, but the Cruz people need some control over her. So the Cruz PAC sends five hundred thousand to the Carly PAC. The Carly PAC does some stuff that the Carly campaign would otherwise have done, freeing up budget to pay the woman. The woman makes pretty much what you’d expect for her experience. Harvard Law, RNC communications, senior staffer on Ted’s Attorney General race that he aborted in 2010.

GP: What happened there? Why did he abort the race?

OPERATIVE: The attorney general decided to seek another term. And they were friends, so Cruz kinda had to back out.

GP: Is that for sure? Could have Ted have asked the AG to help him out?

OPERATIVE: Possible I guess.

GP: I mean, if Cruz had an affair with a staffer and his wife found out and he needed to get out of the race, having the AG decide to run again would be really convenient.

OPERATIVE: Yeah. I hadn’t thought of that, but yeah, that makes sense. The timing’s kind of perfect, too.

GP: Okay, so what’s next?

OPERATIVE: You mean, in the attorney general thing or . . .

GP: Whatever. Is that all?

OPERATiVE: Almost. Ted runs for the Senate and wins. This woman goes on to RNC. Roe finds out about the story and tells Ted he’s got it. Roe is a sharp, sharp dude. He’d have a contingency plan ready. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was behind shopping the huge, outrageous five-women story to Breitbart and Daily Caller and wherever just to have it out there, ready to go. So when Anonymous warned that they were going to expose an affair, Roe’s folks drop the National Enquirer story as an anchor. Now, if it’s anyting less than 5 women bent over a sink in a utility closet in church or something, Cruz’s sins don’t look bad at all. It’s a great strategy. Beck sort of confirmed that there’s something there, but that it’s sort of dull, just a plain old affair and everybody’s over it. And who am I to judge, right? If his wife’s okay with it, who are we to judge? Just like Bill and Hillary and Monica Lewinsky.

GP: Got it. Yeah. Bill and Hillary. Oh my God.

OPERATIVE: Yeah. The good old days, huh?

GP: Or not. And what’s next? Is there a mea culpa?

OPERATIVE: Yeah. Probably after Wisconsin. Cruz is polling well in Wisconsin, so he won’t want to screw with that. But it’s gotta come out I think. I mean, this woman is going through a lot of psychological turmoil, right? And her husband’s got to be pissed. He’s kind of a public figure almost. I mean, he’s hearing this every day and there’s no denial. And if it happened, I’m sure he knew, but it’s still a slap in a guy’s face when his wife’s out there being some old fling for a guy who’s running for president. Anointed by God for our times or whatever Beck says. Eventually he’s gotta get fed up and say, “you tell them or I tell them.” Or “I’m walking.”

GP: Totally. Yeah, I agree. Wow. It’s gotta suck for him, her husband even if there was no affair. Peopl talkine about your wife.

OPERATIVE: Yep. But that’s my guess. Press conference after Wisconsin with Heidi standing by her man looking like she just ate a shit sandwich and Ted accusing Trump of digging this up.

GP: Do you think Trump did it

OPERATIVE: Hell no. I mean, I don’t know, but I really think Anonymous forced the issue and Cruz’s people dropped the ridiculous Enquirer piece to set an anchor. Again, I have no evidence whatsoever except being in this game for a long time and seeing how people operate. And Roe is probably the most devious operator I’ve ever seen. By far.