Cruz's attack on 'New York values' (and by implication, Trump) doesn't go so well

I recall Ronald Reagan once saying he wouldn't be satisfied until Washington D.C. voted Republican. The point was not so much to pursue an unattainable pipe dream as it was to establish that he would rather win over a politically hostile area than treat it like an enemy. I guess Ted Cruz doesn't see it that way, because his choice last night to go off on "New York values" as a way of attacking Donald Trump didn't exactly come off as a strategy for one day putting the Empire State in the red column. But it didn't work too well as an attack on Trump either. Once Cruz has set the stage by attacking New York as the friend of gay marriage and abortion, from which not many conservatives ever come, Trump steps to the plate:

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As you know, I've never been one to put much importance on moments in debates (or on the debates at all, for that matter), but as someone who has generally appreciated Cruz's style of taking on the establishment and doing it with good humor - which is actually very Reaganesque - I don't get this at all. It's not even that the generalization isn't fairly accurate. I'd say it is. But how do you figure you're going to benefit by attacking the place in general? Hey, I'm from Detroit. You know what's happened here. But you stand there and attack the place I'm from, and you'd better believe I'm going to tell you the things I love about it - and I'm going to make you sound like a jerk without ever saying a word about you. I have no idea if Trump knew this was coming. I don't know how he would have. But I think his take on New York is much like that of many Americans. He didn't deny that the prevailing politics are liberal, but he correctly pointed out that New York has capabilities like no other city on Earth - and even if you don't particularly like it there (and I don't particularly like it there), you at least have to recognize that it plays an important role for that reason. And he couldn't have come up with a better example than 9/11 to remind people of a time when, whether you loved New York or hated New York, you loved New York. This moment doesn't mean Trump would be a great president or that Cruz would be a bad one. Few things that happen in debates ever mean that. It just means that Cruz made a very ill-considered decision to attack the biggest city in America, and if he thought he was going to land a punch on Donald Trump by doing so, he underestimated Trump like most everyone else has.

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