Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz likened rival Donald Trump to reality TV star Kim Kardashian — a slam that brought strong advice Friday from The Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol.
"There's no doubt that Donald Trump is the Kim Kardashian presidential candidate," Cruz said Thursday on the syndicated
"John & Ken" radio program in Los Angeles. "He sits on Twitter and makes a lot of noise, but he has no solutions to fixing the problem."
The Texas senator's comments were lauded in some conservative circles — "score one for Senator Ted Cruz," proclaimed
Red State columnist Susan Wright — but Kristol cautioned the candidate from falling into a similar pattern of lobbing insults like Trump.
"Donald Trump is good at name-calling, and I don't think it's good for our politics," Kristol told Jake Tapper on
CNN. "But he's been effective at it.
"I think Ted Cruz is doing pretty well. He's likely to win Wisconsin — and I think the reason is people are saying, 'Wait a second, can we have Donald Trump as president?'
"There's no need to imitate Donald Trump," he advised. "Just be yourself and be a serious conservative."
Before she dropped out of the GOP sweepstakes last month, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina told Fox News that Trump "reminds me of the
Kim Kardashian of politics."
Fiorina has since endorsed the senator.
In Wisconsin,
Cruz is leading Trump by 10 points among voters in two polls released this week, including a Fox Business Network survey issued Friday showing the senator ahead 42-32 percent.
The Badger State holds its primary on Tuesday.
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