CLEVELAND — Ted Cruz did the Republican Party no favors last night when he pointedly refused to endorse GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, breaking a promise he and other rival candidates made at the outset of the primary campaign last year.
Cruz also made what appeared to be some kind of overture to race baiters by mentioning aspiring cop-killer Alton Sterling who was recently shot dead by Baton Rouge police during an altercation. It seemed very odd, but maybe in retrospect it shouldn’t. After all, Cruz went along with leftists and a few other GOPers by baselessly smearing Trump as a racist after he urged the deportation of millions of illegal aliens.
Of course Cruz is not the only contender for the Republican nod to go back on his word but he is the most high-profile and he won the second-highest number of convention delegates after Trump. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who also had intense run-ins with Trump throughout the primary process, swallowed his pride and appeared in a video last night endorsing Trump.
It is true that during the primary campaign Trump launched some nasty, low-blow attacks on Cruz (and others). He retweeted an unflattering photo of Cruz’s wife, Heidi, juxtaposed with a photo of Trump’s beauty queen wife, Melania, a move that was interpreted as a dig at Mrs. Cruz’s appearance. He embraced a crazy conspiracy theory that put Cruz’s father at the heart of the John F. Kennedy assassination. He saddled Cruz with the undeserved nickname “Lyin’ Ted.”
But the convention is supposed to be where these matters are settled, the aggrieved individuals and factions reconciled, and the party united to take on the other party in November. As the saying goes, politics ain’t beanbag — and America’s future is too important to jeopardize over one’s own hurt feelings.
It was a huge missed opportunity for Cruz to bring Republicans together and it is dangerous because many hardcore Cruz backers will now feel justified in withholding their support in November for the GOP’s nominee.
Cruz could not swallow his pride. The Texas senator was loudly booed off the stage at the Republican National Convention after he humiliated the GOP’s new standard bearer by urging Americans to “vote your conscience.” The boos and howling by delegates were powerful enough that they could be felt way up in the rafters of the Quicken Loans Arena.
Cruz and his wife Heidi had to be escorted out of the arena after the crowd grew angry.