I really don’t care what Ted Cruz does or doesn’t do. But I wonder why he endured getting booed off the stage at the Republican National Convention if he was going to turn around and endorse Trump anyway. I guess he could have concluded that he miscalculated when he decided to not to endorse when it really mattered. That’s the only explanation that makes any sense to me.
I wonder what factors led him to conclude that he needed to kiss Trump’s ring now?
Maybe he found out that some liberals had developed one tiny modicum of a shred of respect for him when he actually seemed to be acting on principle. I’d put myself in that category–I found that I had perhaps infinitesimally less contempt for him when he refused to endorse Trump. So much for that.
He was pissed at the convention.
He took a stepped back and concluded:
Not difficult.
And, he wants to keep that senate seat.
I agree. If Trump was going to be blown out, dissing him was OK.
Trump is making a race of it, and after he does well in Monday’s debate, things will tighten even more.
Why will he do well in the debate? Simple. It is not what you do, say, or miss. It is how well you do in comparison to expectations. Trump is expected to do very very badly, and he will not do very very badly.
Hillary is expected to be unbeatable, and she won’t be that good.
It’s not what you do, but how it compares to expectations.
He will win the debate. And his stock will move up.
I doubt he’ll do well at all, even under your theory.
He has to say something, anything. And that will be his undoing.
It’s just Cruz being Cruz. His whole MO is to oppose the GOP poobahs and get public attention for doing it. He’s also a sore loser. Then, after losing and having a hissy fit about it, it dawns on him that he needs the party more than the party needs him.
He’s the fundamentalist Christian version of Trump which for some reason didn’t have its usual punch in the GOP primaries. IOW, his schtick was suddenly obsolete. That could be sliver lining in this election.
A commenter here recently speculated that the polls showed Trump winning, and Cruz wanted to jump on board. That’s the scariest explanation for me.
I read it was a donor of his who backs Trump, and he threatened to cut off the cheese if Cruz didn’t get in line.
Interesting.
But this move just ends the Cruz political career if you ask me. It won’t make the Trump people happy, and it won’t make the people who thought for a brief moment that Cruz was not an unprincipled hack.
Cruz is an oddball. He has a knack for doing the wrong things at the wrong times, and everyone ends up disliking him because of it. Perhaps he just couldn’t stop himself, once again.
If he has this “knack”, why did he end up in 2nd place for the Republican nomination?
That is an excellent question.
I dunno, but considering the rise of Trump, maybe being hated by “everyone” or at least everyone in DC was an advantage?
Does this mean that if not for Trump, Cruz would have won the nomination?
Trump is more popular in Texas than Cruz is. So is Trump supporter Rick Perry, who would beat Cruz in a hypothetical Senate race. The miscalculation theory works just fine.
He’s in a heck of a position. First Trump steals his presidential marbles. Then he humiliates him before the entire Republican world (after humiliating his dad too) — remember these base voters are really into cock measurements.
As the race unfolds, Trump does better than expected and is polling solid in Texas. Cruz is beginning to look weak. Teddy can cave before it reeks so obviously of desperation even the rubes discount it or he can stick with his “principled stand,” hoping the winds shift.
Traded his fake credibility to hopefully hang on to his ass. If Trump folds now, turkey man will have nothing for all his efforts.
I’ve heard similar stories of the big donors cutting off Cruz’s supply.
It’s also a fact that the most important person in Ted Cruz’s world is Ted Cruz. I would be more than willing to bet that that Ted and Heidi (poor Heidi) have had sex twice, the amount necessary to produce their children. I suspect the sex was mechanical and cold, ending with Ted making a squeaking noise and drooling a little when he climaxed, and Heidi rolling over and crying quietly.
So it’s easy for me to see him throwing his wife and his father under the bus. They’re not really people, just props necessary for the Ted Cruz hologram to function properly.
he’s basically a Slitheen.
How about the following: Cruz was both royally pissed and (like most) fully expected Der Trumper to be humiliated by the Unstoppable HRC. He also calculated that there was some True Conservative(tm) vote out there that was going to reject Trump en masse and that he could lead in future as their champion.
Now—a month or so later–it is quite clear that, far from being humiliated, Trump has an excellent chance of winning, is being strongly supported by those supposedly hostile True Conservatives, and that the Repub party and the white identity movement are calling for All Hands on Deck! on pain of permanent excommunication.
So the Prodigal Conservative returneth and Der Trumper likely gave some sort of dispensation to Cruz for his better-late-than-never conversion. Another lost sheep has been found and returned to the flock…
against that, FWIW (possibly zero!).
I don’t know what he was supposed to “get” to begin with? Maybe he went over to his supporters in the House to try to get them to shut down the government again and was told he was no longer welcome in “polite” society?
One thing I read was that he was concerned about 2018 primary challengers.
We’re to the point of Ted Cruz being primaried from the right.
I read that, too. And it makes the most sense.
I think he’ll still get primaried, and I think he’ll lose.
There’s just so far you can go pissing off everyone.
As others point out, He miscalculated Trump’s chances and the non-endorsement impact on his own Texas re-election poll numbers.
So he recalculated.
If Trump gets trounced, he’ll recalculate again.
He’s a politician
That absolutely complete neutering of the #nevertrump gang as a result of Trump’s rapid ascension to CEO of the Republican Party pretty much ripped apart the sails of the Cruz ship. Since this development, he has basically been adrift in the political Dead Sea, with a broken rudder and a non-existent crew on his ship.
So he had little choice if he wanted to crawl his way back to any relevance in this whole Republican show. But the sight of him publicly kissing the ass of Donald Trump should go down in history as one of the most disgustingly revealing things about what a craven piece of shit this man is.
But the sight of him publicly kissing the ass of Donald Trump should go down in history as one of the most disgustingly revealing things about what a craven piece of shit this man is.
Did anyone have any doubts? I mean all his fellow GOP Senate colleagues hated the guy. His roommate from Princeton, I think it was, hated his guts. He’s like Trump in that way, I;m sure. He probably, like Trump, has few real friends. Just rich guys he hasn’t f-cked over yet.
I don’t think it has to do with polls or Trump’s chances of winning or Trump’s popularity in Texas. Trump was closer in the polls after the RNC than he is now, so I don’t think that concern about being blamed for Trump’s losing was a factor for Cruz. The negative reaction to his non-endorsement did not seem to bother him, so why be bothered now?
No, I think what triggered the endorsement was Reince Priebus’ recent threat that the RNC will withhold support and resources from candidates who refuse to endorse Trump. That would hurt Cruz in 2020 and in his relection campaign in 2018. Cruz has very few friends and allies in the Senate, and he needs RNC support.
I addressed this in an earlier thread. I think the only explanation is that Republican polling shows a likely Trump victory. Endorsing now won’t make up for humiliating Trump at the convention for the Trump faction, and he just threw away the I told you so button he had earned if Trump loses. If Trump wins, he will abuse the power of Presidency brutally in pursuit of personal vendettas, and Cruz wanted out from under the vendetta.