https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/05/03/if-cruz-loses-tonight-irony-overload/?postshare=4551462296939297&tid=ss_twIf Cruz loses tonight: Irony overloadBy Jennifer Rubin May 3 at 1:30 PM
Perhaps a last-minute change of heart will sweep across the Hoosier State. Maybe Indiana voters will finally figure out the emperor has no clothes or that the tales Donald Trump has been telling them are no more real than the education Trump University students received. A raft of polls suggests otherwise. For now, one can only marvel at the ironies if Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) goes down to defeat tonight and ultimately loses the nomination:
Cruz was among those Republicans who tried to cater to neo-isolationists and libertarians, only to be beaten by an incoherent America Firster.
Cruz championed the game of blaming the GOP establishment for not accomplishing impossible tasks (repealing Obamacare during President Obama’s time in office), only to face Donald Trump, who rode that sense of betrayal (as concocted as it might have been) to victory after victory.
Cruz was so busy fighting the “establishment” that he neglected to devise a complete, attractive agenda; he came up against Trump, whose “policies” ran from hopelessly vague (on health care) to ludicrous ( e.g., a 45 percent tariff on goods from China).
Cruz excelled at vilifying former presidential contenders like Mitt Romney, former senator Bob Dole and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as insufficiently doctrinaire — only to find himself unable to rally somewhat conservative and moderate Republicans whom he attacked unfairly for years. Pleading for unity to the very end, Cruz’s lack of collegiality and overwhelming ambition (to the detriment of his fellow Republicans) came back to haunt him. Big time.
Cruz fanned the flames of anti-immigration fervor, even abandoning his own support for legal immigration, only to find himself up against a xenophobe willing to create a police state to deport illegal immigrants.
Cruz imagined the GOP was made up of people for whom a 100 percent rating from Heritage Action was important, only to find the GOP is not nearly as conservative as he thought. Put differently, there are not nearly as many strident conservatives as he thought. (Instead, as he has just begun to do, he should have been making a non-ideological argument that Trump is a “pathological liar.”)
Cruz decided to run for office with virtually no experience in public office, only to come up against someone who had even less.
Cruz made an art of incivility and name-calling in the Senate, only to find himself arguing that Trump yells, screams and insults people.
Cruz cultivated the screechy talk radio set and conspiracy-minded blogs, only to watch characters like Sean Hannity and outlets like Breitbart carry Trump on their shoulders.
You get the picture. Unfortunately for the party, for #NeverTrump forces and the country, Cruz — saddled with so many personal flaws and policy miscues — has been the last man with a shot to stop Trump. He is one of the least equipped to do so.
While it was too late to reinvent his personality or undo his freshman antics in the Senate, Cruz made critical decisions all along the way that ultimately inured to Trump’s benefit. Had, for example, Cruz exited after South Carolina or losses in the SEC primary, he could have given wider berth to a candidate with broader appeal. Had Cruz early on joined the #NeverTrump force, he could have demonstrated real leadership and set himself apart from the crowd. Had Cruz not bowed and scraped, humbling himself before Trump for months, Cruz’s later criticism might have seemed more genuine, and Trump’s juggernaut might have been derailed earlier.
In sum, Cruz has gotten the smaller, technical things right (delegate fights, ground game, fundraising) and the big things (divisiveness, ideological rigidity, etc.) wrong. Put differently, this has been a superbly run campaign with a very problematic candidate.
Cruz can blame the mainstream media (which did, in fact, help make Trump into a political steamroller). He can be understandably frustrated with Republican voters who couldn’t bring themselves to forgive the past, even to stop Trump. That said, if Cruz loses the nomination, he will, more vividly than any candidate in recent memory, have no one to blame but himself.
