Ted Cruz’s last crusade
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz suspended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination last Tuesday after a crippling loss to Donald Trump in Indiana.
But that doesn’t mean he and his allies are giving up.
In the span of a single 16-hour period early this week, Cruz’s top supporters revealed that they are preparing to wage war in Cleveland over the GOP platform, while Cruz himself pointedly refused to rule out the prospect of resurrecting his campaign against Trump.
It’s the latest sign that conservatives aren’t embracing the GOP’s presumptive nominee — and that this summer’s Republican convention, where other conservative groups are already girding for battle over the platform , is likely to be anything but boring.
Call it Cruz’s last crusade (at least until he runs for president again in 2020).
Speaking to radio host Glenn Beck Tuesday , Cruz said that he dropped out after Indiana because he “didn’t see a viable path to victory.”
But then he added an intriguing coda.
“If that changes,” Cruz continued, “we will certainly respond accordingly.”
In a gaggle of reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday afternoon, Cruz repeated his line about not having a viable path to victory before again raising the possibility that he could reenter the race in the weeks or months ahead.
“Of course if that changed, we would reconsider things,” Cruz said. “If circumstances change, we will always assess changed circumstances.”
The Texan also declined to endorse Trump.
“This is a choice every voter is going to have to make,” Cruz told Beck. “It is not a choice that we as voters have to make today.”
Meanwhile, a group of top Cruz supporters organized a conference call Monday night urging disappointed Cruz delegates — who have to pay their own way to the convention — not to make other plans for July 18 to 21. According to Politico, the goal was to deliver “a rallying cry to Cruz’s supporters about the importance of showing up in Cleveland and not ceding control of their slots on the party’s platform and rules committees.”
To find out more — about Cruz’s curious remarks as well as the plan for Cleveland — Unconventional spoke to former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the archconservative who led Monday’s call after serving as Cruz’s top delegate hunter during the campaign.
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