Yet in 2016, another overwhelmingly white gathering of Republican convention delegates – the makeup clear on television images or a walk through the Quicken Loans Arena floor – has nominated an all-white male ticket: businessman Donald Trump and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
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He became “Lyin’ Ted” and his Cuban-born father the target of a weird Trump conspiracy theory (that the elder Cruz was involved in the John F. Kennedy assassination).
There was no way he was jumping onside.
Trump leaned nearly exclusively on white voters to win the nomination and, in the process, alienated swaths of minorities with his push for a border wall to stop illegal immigration, calls for a “deportation force” and proposals to ban non-citizen Muslims from entering the country. And she relentlessly trashed presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Obama is a man “who does everything backwards – he wants to close Guantanamo Bay and open up our borders, he exports jobs and imports terrorists”, he said.
Clinton “believes government should make virtually every choice in your life”.
By contrast, Gingrich’s prepared remarks included only a single mention of Cruz, saying that the Texas senator’s remarks “made the key point that we need to elect the Trump-Pence Republican ticket”. “And yes, builds a wall to keep us safe”.
Trump created his own distraction toward the end of Cruz’s speech by entering the family box as the Texas senator wrapped up.
And make no mistake, Cruz has a constituency in what remains a “true conservative” party.
“He is what Donald Trump needs to win this election in November”, Mason said during a telephone interview from Cleveland.
Both episodes raised questions about his oversight of his campaign, which gives voters a window into how a candidate might handle the pressures of the presidency. Or, given his well-documented lack of concern about making and keeping friends in the Senate, he also might not care.
One of Trump’s sons, Eric, touted his father’s business record and bragged about how he reshaped skylines and turned “dreams into reality his entire career”.
Skipping the podium and opting for a wireless microphone, Walker went first.
Many of Cruz’s supporters from around the country came to thank him, shake his hand and pose for photographs. “Cruz smiled at the interruption, joking that he “[appreciated] the enthusiasm of the NY delegation”. “I meant it then, and I mean it now”. “I want to congratulate Donald Trump on winning the nomination last night”, Cruz said.
Walker dismissed Clinton as “the ultimate liberal Washington insider”. He later told CNN that people were “physically approaching” and “berating her” as her husband spoke.
He said a Trump/Pence ticket is running on issues facing the country and that Americans are exhausted being told “this is as good as it gets”.
A rambling older gentleman named Phil Ruffin – a Las Vegas mogul, apparently – called his friend Donald Trump a “tsunami” in his long, odd speech.
Rubio skipped the convention entirely.
But in a brief video, he argued Clinton, among other things, “planted the seeds for the disaster we know as Obamacare” and was “a reliable vote for crony capitalism”.
Frankowski, like other delegates, was particularly incensed by the “vote your conscience” line – a phrase that the NeverTrump movement had used in its unsuccessful quest to allow delegates to vote for whomever they wanted rather than ratifying Trump’s status as the nominee.
Despite the clear acrimony between the two men on the debate stage earlier this year, “the time for fighting each other is over”, Rubio said. But Roe suggested conservatives might take some time to watch Trump, and judge him by his actions. Some Republican leaders say Clinton should be prosecuted for mishandling classified material during her time as secretary of state, he said.
Newt Gingrich took the stage later, claiming that Cruz said voters can vote their conscience for anyone who would uphold the Constitution.
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And that would have to do.
