Pence, Cruz and the Tough Choices Republicans Face
W. James Antle III
Politics, United States
Two prominent conservatives made starkly different judgements about Donald Trump and how best to advance their own political futures in the party he has roiled.
CLEVELAND—Well, that was something.
Everyone is still buzzing about the third night of the Republican National Convention, during which two prominent conservatives made starkly different judgements about Donald Trump and how best to advance their own political futures in the party he has roiled.
Ted Cruz, the Texas senator who leads conservative firebrands in Congress and came up short in his own presidential bid, refused to endorse Trump for president in his primetime speech.
Mike Pence, the Indiana governor who once led conservative firebrands in Congress at a time when they were few and far between, accepted the nomination for vice president and in the process made the case for why the right must stand with Trump.
Cruz was built for these moments. He probably orders breakfast like he is delivering the Gettysburg address. The more unassuming Pence rose to the occasion, however. He blew the other people on Trump’s vice-presidential shortlist away, although he did have two of the best Republican speechwriters working with him.
Cruz in all likelihood upstaged Pence because the media hates Trump, loves conflict and gets excited about anything that keeps party conventions from being boring affairs; Trump and his supporters also ensured that Cruz would be the bigger story, because they hate criticism, love conflict and believe all publicity is good publicity.
Imagine what last night’s drama could do for tonight’s ratings, when Trump himself is set to accept the Republican presidential nomination?
But it’s also easy to imagine another scenario: what if Trump made speaking at the convention contingent upon an endorsement, which would be well within political norms to do, or at least booted Cruz out of primetime if he wasn’t going to give one?
Without Cruz’s speech, all the focus would have been on Pence. The storyline would be what a great night Trump had, with Scott Walker and Marco Rubio coming around to support the nominee, House Speaker Paul Ryan giving an enthusiastic introduction of Pence, who then stook the stage and hit it out of the park.
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