Cruz And ‘New York Values’

What did Ted Cruz really mean when he said Donald Trump represents "New York values?"

On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, where the evangelical vote is critical for Republicans and the Texas senator and New York real estate mogul are in a virtual dead heat, they've broken their bromance and begun trashing each other.

Trump has polished up his birther credentials and changed targets from Barack Obama to the Canadian-born Cruz. 

Cruz hits back by trying to tie Trump to Hillary Clinton, pointing out that she is the former liberal Democratic senator from New York who has said her fellow New Yorker, Trump, "was basically a Democrat before he was a Republican."

In an interview on the Howie Carr Show Cruz on Tuesday said Trump "comes from New York and he embodies New York values." 

Was he just saying to the GOP's very conservative evangelical base in Iowa that Trump comes from the home of the eastern liberal values and mainstream media they love to hate, or was there a subliminal message?

"New York values" or some variation of the term has often been used as a euphemism for "Jewish."  Trump and Clinton have something Jewish in common besides New York: their daughters are married to Jews.

An essay in Entertainment Weekly pointed out that some critics thought Seinfeld was "too New York," but what they really meant was "too Jewish."