Cruz, who was raised in the evangelical sub-culture after his father Raphael was saved from alcoholism, was booed by delegates at the gathering in Cleveland on Wednesday night when he gave a speech but did not endorse Trump. You could only win, however, if the headline actually made it into the paper.
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But as Cruz closed his remarks, and as the crowd of more than 2,000 delegates at the Quicken Loans Arena waited for Cruz to say something – anything – kind about Trump, he demurred.
Ted Cruz hasn’t changed his mind on Donald Trump.
Such headlines billowed out of the blogosphere and diffused themselves in shrouds of dark particulate mist around the consciousness of the moment.
Cruz said he delivered this speech out of “obligation”.
“If you are a Republican who believes in true conservative values and you want to save America you’ve got to get behind Donald Trump and Mike Pence”, he said. “And then at the last minute, once he said, ‘vote your conscience, ‘ I blew a gasket”. Cruz’s wife, Heidi Cruz, was heckled by Trump supporters shouting “Goldman Sachs!” and escorted out by security.
The episode was tough to watch for Vanila Singh, a Woodside resident who had been a Cruz delegate before joining Trump’s slate.
Cruz immediately tackled the question upon taking the stage, acknowledging a man holding a “Clinton-Cruz 2020” sign. When it became clear that the Texas senator and runner-up for the GOP presidential nomination would not endorse Trump, the convention hall erupted with jeers and booing. That included tweeting an unflattering photo of Cruz’s wife and alleging without any firm basis that Cruz’s father, Rafael, was involved in the plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
Cruz told a gathering of the Texas delegates, “I addressed the convention because Donald Trump asked me to”.
“I appreciate the enthusiasm of the NY delegation”, Cruz said as the jeers grew louder and louder.
“You see this room when people like to make the story and create the dialogue about disunity”, Trump Jr. said.
Cruz said Trump should not have been surprised by the content of his Wednesday night address because the campaign “knew exactly what I was going to say”.
The Democratic Party and its nominee, Katie McGinty, have repeatedly sought to tout the “Trump-Toomey” ticket as bad for Pennsylvania. Still he says he will vote for Trump.
Cruz delegate Eric Burlison, a Missouri House member from Springfield, said Cruz may have done more harm than good for his own political career. “Ted Cruz exercised that right”.
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“Our party is coming together and we are unifying behind our nominee”, he said. I’ve spoken at every convention since 1992, and I can attest to the fact that no one got near that stage without supporting the nominee.
