At issue: The New York Times refuses to grant the Texas senator’s memoir, “A Time for Truth,” a place on its powerful list of bestselling books, despite his publisher’s insistence that his numbers should vault him well ahead of other titles in the top 10. The Times responded by telling HarperCollins that the book did not meet their criteria for inclusion. In a statement to Politico, spokesman Rick Tyler said, "The Times is presumably embarrassed by having their obvious partisan bias called out. But their response — alleging ‘strategic bulk purchases’ — is a blatant falsehood,” Cruz campaign spokesperson Rick Tyler said in a statement Friday. “The evidence is directly to the contrary. In leveling this false charge, the Times has tried to impugn the integrity of Senator Cruz and of his publisher Harper Collins.” 
 
 “We call on the Times, release your so-called ‘evidence.’ Demonstrate that your charge isn’t simply a naked fabrication, designed to cover up your own partisan agenda,” Tyler continued. “And, if you cannot do so, then issue a public apology to Senator Cruz and Harper Collins editor Adam Bellow for making false charges against them.” 
 
 Tyler’s blast came just minutes after HarperCollins announced it had found “no evidence of bulk orders or sales through any retailer or organization” — a statement that all but accused the Times of lying. In which case Cruz gets the conservative cred of being blackballed by the Times and the PR bonus of being a Times bestseller. Eileen Murphy, the Times spokesperson, said Friday that the paper was standing by her initial claim that the “overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales [of Cruz’s book] were limited to strategic bulk purchases.” Murphy did not respond to a request for comment regarding the Cruz campaign’s statement. In her initial response, Murphy said the Times had “uniform standards that we apply to our best seller list, which includes an analysis of book sales that goes beyond simply the number of books sold.” She later added, “Our goal is that the list reflect authentic best sellers, so we look at and analyze not just numbers, but patterns of sales for every book.” 
 
 The Cruz campaign called Murphy’s initial explanation “cryptic,” and her later claims about bulk purchases “false.” 
 
 “Their decision to blackball Cruz’s book suggests that the Times very much does not want people to read the book,” the campaign said. As the Post’s Philip Bump noted, “When Costco axed Dinesh D’Souza’s book from its shelves last summer for poor sales, the resulting outcry ensured so much demand that Costco quickly restocked it.” 
 
 “It’s important to look at a book like a campaign, setting the groundwork early and then seizing opportunities,” noted Urbahn. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) 
 
 Perhaps the only thing better for Sen. Ted Cruz's 2016 candidacy than seeing his book on the New York Times bestseller list is seeing the New York Times refuse to include it.
– So Ted Cruz's book won't be listed among the New York Times' best sellers, even though it racked up about 12,000 sales in its first week. But if you think Cruz is angry, you've got it exactly backward, reports Politico. The feud is a sign that the "campaign gods are smiling down" on him, writes Dylan Byers. It's helping him among conservatives who loathe the paper as too liberal, and it's generating more attention for his book. If you missed the original controversy, the Times essentially accused the Cruz campaign of rigging the system by buying up books in bulk. But publisher HarperCollins disputes that, as does the campaign. “The Times is presumably embarrassed by having their obvious partisan bias called out," says spokesman Rick Tyler. "But their response—alleging ‘strategic bulk purchases’—is a blatant falsehood." Tyler challenged the newspaper to present its evidence for the accusation. In a piece at the Washington Post headlined "Ted Cruz hits the jackpot: A book war with the New York Times," Philip Bump predicts an ironic conclusion to the tale: The book will eventually show up on the Times' list because all this attention will do wonders for authentic, no-doubt-about-it sales. "In which case Cruz gets the conservative cred of being blackballed by the Times and the PR bonus of being a Times bestseller. Win-win."