Last year, Josh Duggar posted a photo on social media that showed him posing with Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
At the time, Josh was a lobbyist for the ultra-conservative Family Research Council and a hero to the evangelical right.
In the months since that photo was taken, Duggar and Cruz would both find themselves at the center of major national news stories, but for very different reasons.
The Josh Duggar sex scandals went from tabloid murmurs to the stuff of network news broadcasts overnight, eventually bringing an end to the Duggar empire as we knew it.
Cruz has been making headlines for very different reasons as the sole GOP presidential candidate to withstand the onslaught from Donald Trump’s bully pulpit.
In recent weeks, the Cruz campaign has been dodging a potential PR nightmare thanks to the National Enquirer‘s report that Cruz has engaged in five extramarital affairs during his time in the Senate.
The tabloid went on to claim that Cruz cheated on his wife with Katrina Pierson – a former Tea Party activist who’s currently working for the Trump campaign.
Thus far, the Cruz team has been able to sweep the whole thing under the rug, and the proof promised by the editors of the Enquirer has yet to materialize.
But now more than ever, Cruz is probably very happy that he chose to severe ties with the Duggar family in the weeks following last year’s scandals.
With some already questioning the senator’s commitment to evangelical ideas, any reminder that he was once happy to be associated with a family whose name is now synonymous with hypocrisy could prove disastrous.
There was a time an endorsement from the Duggars could prove a major asset for a conservative political campaign.
The Duggar seal of approval was so sought-after at one point that Mike Huckabee continued to defend the family even after the allegations that Josh molested four of his sisters went public.
His rivals were sure to note remind potential Huckabee voters of this during the former Arkansas governor’s ill-fated campaign for the GOP nomination.
In hopes of avoiding a similar fate, you can be sure that Cruz will continue to do his best to keep his distance from the Duggars.
