Ted Cruz Pours Gasoline on the Trumpster Fire

One of the best speeches you’re likely to hear in the quest for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination was delivered on Wednesday from the podium of the 2016 Republican National Convention by Ted Cruz, who, of the 16 defeated contenders in the primaries, came the closest to winning the prize that was ultimately claimed by Donald J. Trump.

In the battle for national attention, Trump has few rivals who can come close to beating him. Ted Cruz, the U.S. senator from Texas, proved with his speech that, like the Republican presidential nominee, he knows how to grab the spotlight by breaking form. 

On a night that was to have shone a light on Governor Mike Pence of Indiana, the party’s vice presidential nominee, Cruz blocked the view with a well-crafted speech that pointedly contained no endorsement of the party’s new standard-bearer. Cruz used his primetime spot to masterfully touch on the convention’s themes—love for law enforcement, contempt for Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton—in softer language than that used by other convention speakers. 

He also drew a contrast between himself and Trump by touting the Civil Rights Act, and acknowledging the suffering of black families whose members were killed by police. In closing, he said, “If you love our country, and love our children as much as you do, stand, and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom, and to be faithful to the Constitution.”

The average viewer watching at home would have found little in Cruz’s speech that sounded offensive in the context of a GOP convention. But that “vote your conscience” stuff? To Republican ears, them’s fightin’ words. It’s the very phrase used by the handful of members on the convention rules committee who sought to “unbind” delegates who were committed, under the party’s current regulations, to cast their votes in the nominating process for the choice expressed by the majority in their particular jurisdictions—basically, the #NeverTrump crowd that sought a way to deny Trump the nomination. 

As soon as Cruz uttered those words, the convention floor quickly devolved into a scene reminiscent of Trump’s notoriously raucous campaign rallies. There was booing and jeering and chanting, and Cruz’s wife, Heidi, was escorted out of the hall by security. 

Mission accomplished. Cruz looked reasonable, while the Trump conventioneers looked, if not like thugs, certainly rather ill-tempered.

By the time he left the stage, the next day’s news story from the convention was cast: It was all about Cruz.

‘Those SOBs’ 

At a sprawling Cleveland bar earlier in the day, Cruz hosted a gathering for the delegates he had won at an event reporters thought might feature his endorsement of Trump. A hasty rebranding of the bar gave it the name “Tusker’s”; apparently Cruz, a gun-rights advocate greeting the media following two weeks of murderous violence by and against police, did not want to host his gathering at a place called Shooters, the bar’s actual name.

“In an amazing field of 17 dynamic, talented [primary] candidates, we beat 15 of those candidates. We just didn’t beat 16,” Cruz said to his sad-faced supporters from the bandstand on an open patio. “Our party now has a nominee.”

As if on cue, Trump’s private plane appeared in the sky overhead, prompting a sustained round of booing from the crowd. “That was pretty well orchestrated,” Cruz observed, seeming momentarily unnerved.

Julia Hatcher, a Trump delegate from Texas, was on hand to crash Cruz’s party. “If that’s not a sign from God, I don’t know what is,” she said after the senator’s remarks. “Because I don’t know how anybody could have orchestrated that.”

Speaking to his supporters, Cruz telegraphed his unwillingness to endorse Trump, and his likely interest in making another try for the nomination four years from now.

“I don’t know what the future’s going to hold,” he said. “What I do know is that every one of us has an obligation to follow our conscience; to speak the truth, and truth is unchangeable. … You know, there’s a lot of talk about unity. I want to see unity, and the way to see unity is for us to unite behind shared principles, us to unite in defense of liberty. And for us to empower the grassroots.”

That grassroots part? Code for “I’m continuing my campaign in the guise of a movement.”

Ever since the Iowa caucuses in January, the feud between Trump and Cruz has been bitter, beginning with Trump’s bestowal of a sticky nickname on Cruz: Lyin’ Ted. (Cruz’s people had reached out to supporters of retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, spreading the false rumor that Carson was about to leave the race.)

“We’ve seen some things that haven’t been pretty,” Cruz said from the Tusker’s/Shooters stage. During the primary campaign, Trump also tweeted disparaging remarks about Heidi Cruz’s looks, and later suggested that Cruz’s father, Rafael, was a former communist who palled around with Lee Harvey Oswald.

Cruz apparently has neither forgotten nor forgiven.

Explaining to his supporters why he left Indiana, where he ended his quest for the nomination the day after that state’s primary, without personally thanking each of the volunteers who were with him, he said: “We had 50 TV cameras in there, and I’ll tell ya, I wasn’t gonna let those SOBs turn Lyin’ Ted into Cryin’ Ted.”

‘Not yet’

After Cruz concluded his remarks on the patio, delegates repaired to the indoor bar to absorb all that had just taken place. The Alaska delegation was among the best represented among the rules committee faction that sought to unbind delegates. Jennifer Cutts of Anchorage Point said the state’s issues with the Republican National Committee predate the current presidential election. Nonetheless, she felt no love for Trump.

“I felt very encouraged by what I heard from Mr. Cruz,” she said. “It gave us some hope that there is still a path forward for conservatism in America. Personally, I hope he does not endorse Donald Trump.”

But what of the old guard of movement conservatives represented by Phyllis Schlafly, Richard Viguerie and Pat Buchanan, who have all jumped on the Trump Train?

“I believe that if he were truly a conservative we would see that in his actions, and he hasn’t shown that yet,” she said.

I asked Lillian Nolan, a Cruz delegate from Wisconsin, whether she could see herself voting for Donald Trump. “Not yet. Not yet. Not yet,” she said. “Maybe, but not yet.”

If Cruz used his convention speech to endorse Trump, she said, “It would make me very sad.”

Standing next to her was Hatcher, the Texas Trump delegate. Responding to Nolan’s remarks, she said, “I have no words for that.” she said. 

Asked if she thought the Cruz supporters would eventually come around to vote for Trump, Hatcher replied, “I sure hope they do. Because otherwise, it’s a vote for Hillary.”