Texas director Richard Linklater launches into the Cruz-O-Rourke fray

Houston-based Austin-based director Richard Linklater has a new project, but it's not a project you're going to see in movie theaters.

Instead, the filmmaker enters the political scene with an anti-Ted Cruz advertisement titled "Tough as Texas" posted on YouTube Monday night.

In the film, the man behind the movies "Dazed and Confused", "Last Flag Flying" and "Boyhood" recreates a scene from his 2011 film "Bernie" with actor Sonny Carl Davis – playing a Stereotypical and crispy Texan – who's why Senator Cruz, who is running for reelection against El Paso's MP, Beto O 'Rourke, is he as "tough as Texas"?

Sitting in a dining room, Davis – wearing a cap with a cannon and the words "come and take it" – mockingly says, "I mean, go in. If someone calls my dog ​​a dog and says that my father was part of the Kennedy assassination, I would not kiss their ass.

"You put a finger in their chest and you give them a few words of choice, or you drag their buttocks to the stake and kick their buttocks, Ted.

"Come on, Ted."

It alludes to the battle for the Republican nomination in 2016 when the then candidate, Donald Trump, nicknamed his candidate Cruz, "Lyin" Ted, announced that he was going "reverse the situation" on the wife of Cruz, Heidi. In addition, he posted on Twitter an unpleasant picture of Heidi and claimed that Cruz's father might have been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

In response, Cruz described Trump as "tearful coward" and asked him to "leave Heidi alone."

During the September debate between Cruz and O & Rourke, Cruz defended his decision to bury the hatchet with President Trump.

"After the 2016 elections, I had a choice to make," he said, according to the Dallas Morning News. "Donald Trump had been elected president.We had the opportunity … to do something extraordinary … I could have chosen to get myself out of it. .. to say that my feelings are hurt and take my balls and go home. "

The ad is sponsored by Fire Ted Cruz PAC, an independent group from the O & # 39; Rourke campaign. He was trained by Marc Stanley, a Dallas lawyer and Democratic donor.

"It's not in Beto's DNA to be negative," Stanley told the Dallas Morning News. "That's one of the reasons we launched Fire Ted Cruz PAC, so we can tell people how terrible Ted Cruz is."

The commercial film echoes a scene from "Bernie" where Davis, playing the role of a customer in a restaurant, breaks the differences between the "Five States of Texas" of the People's Republic of Austin, with his "hairy women and his cakes with liberal fruits". to the Houston Cancer Coast and to the posh Mercedes drivers in Dallas.

Linklater is no stranger to getting involved in political issues. He has already donated $ 1,500 to the O & # 39; Rourke campaign. Last year, he directed an advertisement titled "Take a Place, Take a Stand," decrying a bill banning Texas public school students from using bathrooms that reflect their gender identity. .

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