Senator Cruz Went from Down and Dirty to Down and Out in One Day in Indiana

Indiana ended yesterday Senator Cruz’s year-long/lifetime quest for the Presidency, at least this year. He’s still young. Four years is a short time in politics. Vice President Nixon was defeated by Senator Kennedy in 1960, but won the Presidency in 1968. Governor Reagan narrowly lost the 1976 Republican nomination to President Ford, but won the election in 1980. Senator Cruz is still young, highly ambitious, and driven. He can study and learn from his defeat this year and try again in the future. He probably knew his campaign was nearing the end when he remarked earlier in the week that he would not remain in the race if there was no longer a viable means of receiving the nomination. His polling must have told him it was hopeless. It was a very humbling, humiliating, and inconceivable realization for the Senator. Thus, he got engaged in a down and dirty exchange with Donald Trump, a candidate just as ambitious as him. His emotions boiled up. The well-organized, tightly wound campaign lost control. Donald Trump referred to an article in the National Inquirer, which showed a man who looked like Rafael Cruz, Ted Cruz’s father, talking with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the shooting. The publisher of the Inquirer is a strong supporter of Donald Trump. Senator Cruz has vigorously denied the photo is of his father Donald Trump said in a Fox interview: “His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s being, you know, shot.” He added “I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. What is this, right, prior to his being shot – and nobody brings it up.” He asked the rhetorical question: “What was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death, before the shooting?” The innuendo, of course, being that Rafael Cruz was involved somehow in the assassination of President Kennedy. Senator Cruz has been very protective of his family during the campaign. He could have simply, strongly again denied the photo was of his father. Instead, he emotionally let it all out. He called Donald Trump a “serial philanderer,” a “pathological liar,” “utterly immoral,” a “bully,” and a “narcissist at a level I don’t think the country’s ever seen.” He quoted Donald Trump from an appearance on the Howard Stern Show decades ago when Donald Trump described his own battle with venereal disease as his own, personal Vietnam. The Cruz Campaign spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, responded on a higher note: “We are campaigning on jobs, freedom, and security while Trump campaigns on false tabloid garbage ….” She added ‘Trump … is detached from reality, and his false, meaningless comments every day indicate his desperation to get attention and willingness to say anything to do so,” The Trump Campaign responded by calling the Senator “unhinged” and “desperate.” The rhetoric had gotten down and dirty. The Senator should have learned by now that you cannot win a battle of insults with Donald Trump. He should have also learned that befriending Trump (“My friend”) earlier in the campaign would not deter an ambitious Trump from turning on him. Senator Cruz, who self-proclaimed himself an outsider, mastered the insider rules of convention delegates, hoping to win a second ballot nomination if Trump fell short on the first ballot. The outsider/insider candidate lost to the true outsider. It was done and out 10 seconds after the polls closed in Indiana.