'Dazed and Confused' director Richard Linklater makes an anti-Ted Cruz ad
He made Matthew McConaughey a star — but can he get Sen. Ted Cruz out of office? Some Richard Linklater fans are thinking it’d be a lot cooler if he did.
The Oscar-nominated director of Dazed and Confused, the Before Sunrise trilogy, School of Rock, and Boyhood has taken on a new project in his home state of Texas: a campaign ad urging voters to “Fire Ted Cruz.”
On Nov. 6, Texans will decide between Republican incumbent Cruz and Willie Nelson-approved Democrat Beto O’Rourke in arguably the most-watched Senate race of the year. While O’Rourke is not involved or even named in Linklater’s new ad, it’s pretty clear which candidate the Houston-born filmmaker is backing. (For the record, the ad is funded by the Fire Ted Cruz PAC.)
Starring actor Sonny Carl Davis — who appeared in Linklater’s 2011 Jack Black dark comedy, Bernie — the “Is Ted Cruz ‘Tough as Texas?'” video uses the senator’s “Tough as Texas” slogan and rocky relationship with President Trump against him.
“If somebody called my wife a dog, and said my daddy was in on the Kennedy assassination, I wouldn’t be kissin’ their ass,” says Davis in a reference to the mudslinging between Trump and Cruz when they competed in the 2016 Republican primaries.
Trump and Cruz have since mended fences — publicly, at least — and Donald Trump Jr. hit the campaign trail on Cruz’s behalf last week. Meanwhile, Ivanka Trump recently joined Cruz for a visit to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
According to Davis’s remarks in the Linklater ad, Cruz should have taken a stronger stand against Trump — as in “dragged his ass out by the woodshed and kicked his ass.” Kinda puts that Taylor Swift endorsement in Tennessee into perspective, huh?
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