Republican Cruz rips Trump, links him to Clinton

By Emily Stephenson
HUDSON, New Hampshire, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Republican
presidential candidate Ted Cruz sought on Tuesday to link his
rival Donald Trump to Democrat Hillary Clinton, saying it would
make her supporters happy if the real estate mogul were to win
the Republican nomination.
Trump had cited constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe
in arguing that because Cruz, the U.S. senator from Texas, was
born in Canada, he might not be eligible to be U.S. president.
"It is more than a little strange to see Donald relying on
as authoritative a liberal left-wing judicial activist Harvard
law professor who is a huge Hillary supporter," Cruz told
reporters after a rally at a gun range in New Hampshire.
He said in the last couple of presidential elections,
Democrats were able to run against the Republican of their
choice, leading to two victories for President Barack Obama.
"It starts to make you think, gosh, why are Hillary's
strongest supporters backing Donald Trump?" Cruz said.
Cruz also deflected questions about his eligibility to seek
the White House in the November, 2016 election, saying the legal
question was settled.
On Twitter (N:TWTR) on Tuesday afternoon, Trump called the
citizenship issue a "serious problem" for Cruz and linked to an
article by Tribe in the Boston Globe that said it was an open
question whether Cruz was eligible to be president based on the
fact that he was born in Canada.
The Cruz-Trump rivalry has been intensifying ahead of the
Feb. 1 Iowa caucus, the first step in the presidential
nominating process. Cruz leads in the polls in Iowa, while Trump
holds a lead in national polls and in New Hampshire, which holds
its primary on Feb. 9.
For more on the 2016 presidential race, see the Reuters
blog, "Tales from the Trail" (http://blogs.reuters.com/talesfromthetrail/).