ANGRY GOP BOOS FOR CRUZ
Confab erupts as he refuses to endorse Donald
The Republican convention erupted in fury Wednesday night when a defiant Ted Cruz refused to endorse Donald Trump and instead urged people to “vote their conscience.”
Members of the New York delegation began furiously chanting, “Endorse!” and “We want Trump!” even before Cruz finished, when it became apparent he was stabbing the GOP nominee in the back to position himself for a potential 2020 White House run.
Cruz paused, smiled and responded snidely, “I appreciate the enthusiasm of the New York delegation.”
Trump’s family sat stone-faced and Trump himself walked into the arena at the tail end of Cruz’s speech, stealing the Texas senator’s thunder as the crowd kept booing Cruz and cheering the nominee.
“He’s a disgrace and a liar. He’s a self-centered liar and fraud. Lying Ted,” Long Island Rep. Peter King said of his congressional colleague.
“I never trusted him. I’ve never liked him and I think he’s disqualified himself from ever being considered as the Republican nominee for president.”
A man in the donor suite was so angry, he had to be prevented from attacking Cruz after the senator’s speech, and Cruz’s wife, Heidi, had to be escorted to safety, according to CNN.
“Some people on donor suite level so angry at @tedcruz they called him disgrace to his face; one man had to be restrained,” the network’s Dana Bash tweeted.
“HEIDI CRUZ escorted out by security as crowd gets angry at Cruz for his speech. One Trump supporter shouting ‘Goldman Sachs!’ ” at her, CNN’s Manu Raju tweeted, a reference to loans the Cruz campaign took from the banking giant, where Heidi was once an investment manager.
Later, Trump said he knew about the content of the Cruz speech but let the Texas senator take the stage anyway.
“Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn’t honor the pledge!” Trump tweeted. “I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!”
During the speech, Cruz spelled out his own values in an attempt to position himself as the leader of the conservative movement and as the leading GOP presidential candidate in four years, should Trump lose the November general election.
“Ted Cruz is an a--hole!” yelled infuriated North Carolina alternate delegate Laurie Powell, a former Cruz supporter.
“He’s not our nominee. What he needed to do tonight was get behind our nominee. He put himself above the party. Ted Cruz’s political career is over and done.”
It was Cruz’s final comments that set off the crowd. “Stand and speak, and vote your conscience. vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution,” he said.
Meanwhile, Trump gave an interview to The New York Times Thursday in which he said that as president, he might not automatically defend Americ’as NATO allies if they were attacked.
Trump’s campaign later said he had been misquoted.
WCLEVELAND E all know what Donald Trump has brought to this presidential campaign. Wednesday night Mike Pence finally brought the stuff that was missing.
Calm, sober, exuding heartland decency, a guy who grew up in front of a cornfield brought a sleepy, surly crowd to its feet. Just an hour or so earlier, Trump’s delegates, led by a vocal Empire State faction, shouted down Treacherous Ted Cruz for failing to offer even a pro forma endorsement of the GOP nominee and finally booed him back to Texas.
No GOP convention anyone can remember has ever before had to stumble through its convention worried about nailing down the votes of its core demographic of Arnold Palmer-drinking, God-fearing, flag-saluting country-club Republicans.
Pence’s speech told these voters: I’m here. I’m proof that we’re still the same party. If you’re worried about who will provide adult supervision in the White House, look no further.
Both party conventions usually go off so smoothly that it’s easy to overlook the potential for disaster. Nobody wants the Message to be occluded by accusations of plagiarism, much less by the nightmare spectacle of the delegates practically coming after the second-place finisher and supposed unifier with pitchforks and torches.
Pence, starting out with his trademark line, “I’m a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order” segued beautifully into the kind of gentle self-deprecating humor that always works well in politics — but especially well in a season of anger and hyperbole.
Of Trump, Pence said, “He’s a man known for a large personality, a colorful style and lots of charisma.So I guess he was looking for some balance on the ticket.”
Then Pence did the thing that no other speaker this week, except Donald Trump Jr., could quite manage: Without sounding like it was wishful thinking, he cogently fused his brand of old-fashioned conservatism with Trump’s bold new direction. He wrapped it all up so it was as pretty as a package from the little neighborhood jewelry store around the corner from Trump Tower, the one his younger daughter is named after.
Talking about an economy that has borrowed massively yet barely delivered a pulse, Pence said, “The national debt has nearly doubled in these eight years and [Hillary Clinton’s] answer is to keep borrowing and spending . . . they tell us this economy is the best that we can do. It’s nowhere near the best that we can do. It’s just the best that they can do.”
Serene and mature, Pence pro- vided the superego to Trump’s id, yet identified their common ground: They’re both so indisputably American: “He’s the genuine article,” Pence said. “He’s a doer in a game usually reserved for talkers. And when Donald Trump does his talking, he doesn’t tiptoe around 1,000 new rules of political correctness. He’s his own man, distinctly American — and where else would an independent spirit like his find a following than in the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
Pence proved to be an adept attack dog, too. Gently, almost politely, he tore Clinton apart without the red-faced shoutiness other speakers showed, the kind commentators easily dismiss as nutty raving.
The crowd here at Quicken Loans Arena has, not entirely to its credit, taken to shouting “Lock her up!” whenever the Democratic Party nominee is mentioned. They did so again when Pence brought her up.
But instead of taking his cue from the crowd in the room, Pence made a subtly damning case to TV viewers: “Over in the other party, if the idea was to present the exact opposite of a political outsider, the exact opposite of an uncalculating truth teller, then on that score you’ve got to hand it to the Democratic establishment, they outdid themselves this time . . . At the very moment when America is crying out for something new and different . . . Democrats are about to anoint someone who represents everything this country is tired of.”
That isn’t Trumpian bluster. That’s succinct, direct, reasonable and devastating. Trump-Pence may be a match made in politics, but this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Pen ce proved to bean adept attack dog, too. ’ Gently, almost politely, he to re Clinton apart.