Donald Trump had mastered the art of cutting promos and was using it to win the Republican nomination. “Cutting a promo,” refers to the interview segments in a professional wrestling show, when performers take the microphone to insult the audience and challenge their rival to a steel cage match. He had to grab attention and seize the narrative and news cycle. The 2016 Republican primary was rapidly becoming a three-man race between Trump, Cruz and moderate Ohio Governor John Kasich.Ĭruz had to do something before he became the next also-ran. Right-wing darlings like Scott Walker, then the governor of Wisconsin, didn’t even make it to Iowa. Former governors like Rick Perry, Chris Christie and Bush were easily dispatched, as were Senators like Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, who went from the leading anti-Trump voice to his biggest apologist. He had already dispatched an impressive who’s who of that era of Republican politics. Donald Trump was stealing pages from Vince McMahon’s playbook, saying whatever he felt was necessary to whip his fans into a frenzy and keep them coming back to his rallies.Īnd there wasn’t a single Republican candidate that seemed capable of stopping him. To put it simply, Trump was deploying lessons that he learned not from notorious New York political fixer Roy Cohn, but from another close associate who would leave an indelible imprint on Trump’s life. Trump made a series of despicable remarks about Cruz’s wife Heidi, most commonly insulting her appearance while drawing comparisons to his own wife, a former model. If all of that wasn’t enough to offend Republican senses, Trump started to hit Cruz in a way that hurts any person: by attacking his spouse. Bush, the last Republican to occupy the Oval Office. He wasn’t just training his rhetorical guns on Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, Trump was eviscerating Republicans in uncommonly harsh terms.Īt one of his first public events as a presidential candidate, Trump disparaged Arizona Senator and genuine American hero John McCain, who was held captive as a POW during the Vietnam War, saying that he “likes people that don’t get captured.” He tore former Florida Governor Jeb Bush to pieces with an unrelenting barrage of insults, dubbed fellow Floridian Marco Rubio “Little Marco,” and ripped into former President George W. Trump was riding a rocket to the top of the Republican primary by being bombastic and crass. He wasn’t rolling out detailed policy proposals or increasingly impressive slates of endorsements from local kingmakers. Donald Trump was in full ascent, winning the next three contests by double digits and coming out on top in most of the contests that followed on Super Tuesday.Īnd Trump wasn’t winning by respecting the time-honored rules of political engagement. From the moment Cruz reached the United States Senate in January 2013 until this morning in March in Wisconsin, of all places, Cruz had calibrated his entire political existence to stoke the right-wing outrage machine to make himself the most appealing candidate he could to the rabid far right wing that decides most Republican nominating contests.īut after winning the Iowa caucuses by besting Donald Trump and Marco Rubio by a handful of points, Cruz just couldn’t close the deal. Throughout the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, Cruz’s coronation had been disrupted. IN THE SPRING OF 2016, Ted Cruz and his closest advisers knew that he had a serious problem.
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