Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) slammed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as “self-absorbed” after Cruz did not explicitly endorse Donald Trump in his speech to the the Republican convention Wednesday.
“The question was whether Cruz would make his speech about HIS future or the future of the country,” Huckabee said in a Facebook post. “That question was answered when Ted Cruz chose to not keep his word that he (along with me and every other GOP candidate) gave one year ago in that very arena where tonight he put his own ambitions above country.”
Cruz’s non-endorsement drew booing and chanting, which persisted even after the senator left the stage.
“Trump trusted Ted and was rewarded with a betrayal, but the delegates in that arena booed Cruz off the stage and out of Cleveland,” Huckabee said. “When a person is treated with generosity to give a speech, he should either respond with respect or graciously decline. And when a person loses, he should accept the will of the voters and then offer support to the victor of the primary to defeat the anti-gun, pro-abortion, incompetent, dishonest, and dishonorable nominee of the Democrat party.”
“I didn’t see a statesman step forth for the country’s future,” he concluded. “I saw a self-absorbed politician grab the microphone and try to line up his own future. Ted walked in tall and walked out small.”
So we have Christian Huckabee defending ‘Christian’ Trump.
Is that it?
“As I and the GOP have offered our support to President Obama.”
If Gary Johnson and Bill Weld have an ounce of sense, they’re on the phone with Cruz now, trying to line up a joint event where GOP voters can lend them their vote just this once, until the GOP purges itself of fascism. Ideally by tomorrow as a prebuttal to Drumpf Uber Alles tomorrow just to throw him off.
Not that Cruz is any better of course - he’s mostly just bitter he’s not the Fuhrer. But the enemy of your enemy is your friend, Ted Cruz is even more hated than usual right now, and politics makes strange bedfellows.
That would conclude the big “fuck you” Cruz just pulled off. He’s still a weasel, but you strangely have to respect the power play he just made. It’s certainly less pathetic than Christie’s total capitulation to the alpha male in the room, and less irrelevant than Rubio’s beaming in to say something I’ve already forgot. Cruz upstaged the master of dominance politics for a news cycle - if he goes for the kill, he gives himself a reason to be relevant in 2020.
This, strangely, is a good thing, if only because the alternative is insanely worse.
Cruz may have “left small,” but Huckabee left a slime trail.
A hypocritical appeal to norms of behavior from a party that has abandoned the norms of decency, truth, and the forward flow of time.