CLEVELAND Ted Cruz was recounting to an audience how he had outlasted most of his 16 rivals for the Republican presidential nomination when a plane carrying the man who had won it all, Donald Trump, flew overhead, interrupting him mid-speech.
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The strongest language came from retiring Indiana Sen. But he said Cruz “didn’t honor” the pledge that Republican primary candidates had made to support the eventual GOP nominee.
“Senator Cruz’s speech will have very little impact on the election or the GOP”, said national Republican strategist Susan Del Percio. “If he wasn’t going to endorse, he shouldn’t have been anywhere near the podium”.
Cruz delegate Eric Burlison, a Missouri House member from Springfield, said Cruz may have done more harm than good for his own political career.
“I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and who attack my father”, he said.
Donald Trump prepares to give his nomination address today after attempts to forge party unity went up in the flames of lingering bitterness from the brutal primary campaign season.
Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas and Louisiana were the top five states searching for “Ted Cruz booed”, according to Google. As Cruz encouraged the hall to “vote your conscience”, Frankowski was booing loudly and denouncing the vanquished presidential candidate. Given that Donald Trump received more than 12 million votes in 2016, that is a lot of support that he may have just permanently angered.
Even as they knocked Cruz for failing to offer an endorsement, though, Republicans sought to play down the notion that the nationally televised, contentious scene reflected a rift in the party.
“That pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi that I’m going to nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say ‘thank you very much for maligning my wife, ‘” Cruz said. Cruz, 45, said. “To those listening, please, don’t stay home in November”. “That’s who he is and it’s why he is the most disliked person in either party on Capitol Hill”, he said.
After Wednesday night, the best hope for the Republican Party to come together may rest on Clinton, who was frequently vilified at the Cleveland convention. “And then at the last minute, once he said, ‘vote your conscience, ‘ I blew a gasket”.
But prominent Kansas Republicans backed Trump going into the convention, and state GOP Chairman Kelly Arnold said in a texted statement Wednesday night that Cruz’s refusal to endorse the nominee created “general disappointment” in the delegation.
“There’s only two people on the ballot: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump….”
If true, that means Trump’s staff either somehow thought that this debacle would rebound to his benefit, or, even worse, that they were more intent upon punishing Cruz over a personal slight than presenting a positive and unified face to American voters. He said his father is the one candidate for president “who does not need this job”.
What political news is the world searching for on Google and talking about on Twitter?
But the plagiarism scandal over Melania Trump’s speech Monday night still had Google captivated.
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He needs a post-convention bounce in public opinion polls to remain competitive with Clinton, who will be in the spotlight next week in Philadelphia for the Democratic National Convention.
