Turns out you definitely can Stump the Trump. And the person to do just that was “Lion” Ted Cruz, as the runner-up for the nomination blasted Donald Trump to smithereens in front of a packed convention hall – without slamming him by name.
Cruz played Donald Trump like a master prosecutor. He started out with a worthy, but somewhat dull, tribute to fallen police officers – with the convention not knowing whether to cheer or to jeer their killers.
And, of course, he mentioned the Donald early on – congratulating him warmly on his nomination. That was very clever. It looked like Ted wasn’t a sore loser, and ‘well done for winning’ is not an endorsement. I suspect clever lawyer Mr. Cruz promised to ‘acknowledge’ Donald Trump. In fact, the Trump campaign that’s spinning about betrayal saw the speech well in advance, knew what Ted was willing to do, and wholeheartedly endorsed it.
The Cruz speech however then went into high gear – with delegates cheering his praise of Brexit and his reciting of Heat Street’s own motto – “No Safe Spaces”, as Cruz attacked political correctness. Then, he moved on to the constitution.
Trump operatives went into the crowd for the speech and whipped the boos, according to two sources that spoke to Heat Street’s reporter. The genuine applause from the crowd for Cruz’s defense of the Constitution – including Alton Sterling, including the massacre of African-Americans at church by a racist white gunman, as well as the easy applause lines for ‘build a wall’ and attacking Black Lives Matter inspired murders of police officers – shocked Trump’s people, who despite having read the speech, did not realize how, live, it was an attack on all of Trump’s anti-constitutional hate-mongering and bluster.
But the boos were a badge of honor for Ted Cruz, who knew that his audience was not in the hall. It was America, it was conservatives, who inevitably, will contrast Marco Rubio and Scott Walker’s mealy mouthed endorsements with Cruz’s passionate defense of the Republican party, the party of Lincoln, and of principle.
LION TED CRUZ.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) July 21, 2016
At this moment, when Trump crashes and burns in November, when his lack of money and organization is laid bare, it is Ted Cruz who will be the presumptive leader of the massacred Republican movement.
Lion Ted was not nominated for 2016 at this conference – but maybe he was nominated for 2020.
