CLEVELAND – The attendees of the GOP convention were thrown for a loop Wednesday evening when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) finished his primetime speech without an endorsement for Donald Trump. Some delegates were willing to compliment the remarks, and a few even praised the GOP primary’s second-place finisher for sticking to his guns. But many delegates felt betrayed by Cruz’s gambit, which they say proved why he fell short in his effort to defeat Trump and even jeopardized his standing with the party in the future.
“This is a clear indication of why he is not our nominee, and that’s why he is not, because that’s what you get from a guy like Ted Cruz,” Barry Casper, a delegate from Pennsylvania told TPM.
“It was all about him, I’m disappointed,” said Linda Lopez-Alvarez, a delegate from California.
Another California delegate who was with her, John Peck, interjected to say he saw in Cruz’s remarks an actual Trump endorsement, borrowing from the logic of Newt Gingrich, who tried to make amends from the stage after Cruz’s speech.
“He said vote your conscience and the only way you could vote your conscience and stay within the Constitution is with Donald Trump, because Hillary is going to take away and change the Constitution,” Peck said.
But even those who said they otherwise liked Cruz, and the general message of the speech, felt a sense of betrayal with his refusal to offer an explicit endorsement.
“He could have been more supportive of Trump–bottom line,” said state Sen. Johnny Ray Salling (R-MD), adding that he had met Cruz and found him “personable.”
“When people make a bond, and they say something that they will do, they need to be amenable,” Salling said.
“I thought it was a good speech. He could have been something if he had endorsed Trump,” said Thomas Mendenhall, an alternate delegate from Missouri, who was willing to give Cruz props for — unlike Ohio Gov. John Kasich — showing up.
“It’s unbelievable. We’re going to win this election and they’re going to wonder what happened,” Mendenhall said. “I was a Reagan delegate in 1976, and this is a train that has left the station. People better figure it out.”
Still, some were willing to praise Cruz, while acknowledging that there was some political calculus at play.
“I thought it was a great speech. I was fine with his message and what he needed to do his set himself up for another run. That’s what he did,” said North Dakota state Sen. Dick Dever. “He didn’t contradict Trump–I noticed that he congratulated Trump, but he didn’t endorse Trump.”
