America, You Just Met the Real Ted Cruz

Sen. Ted Cruz speaks to the Republican National Convention at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz stepped on stage at the Republican National Convention and refused to honor his pledge, breaking his word and revealing his true self to America. In a meeting with angry delegates Thursday morning, he further admitted he took the bruising primary personally and couldn’t put the country first.

America, you just met the real Ted Cruz.

Throughout this past primary season, much to the dismay of many of our readers, we tried to tell Republican voters the truth about Mr. Cruz, and everyone else for that matter. Many of you didn’t listen and even responded with scorn. Sincere in your convictions, you wanted to believe he was a patriot and would put your interests before his own political ambition.

Believe us, we have the utmost gratitude for his firm stance on ObamaCare and his allied efforts against the unconstitutional expansion of executive power the leaders of the Republican Party were unwilling to confront. We, too, first believed that Mr. Cruz being so disliked by his colleagues in D.C. was a good thing, but quickly learned that being a man of principle is not why they dislike him.

He is not Ronald Reagan, a man who put his country and children first. He’s a small, self-absorbed man using the failures of the party for personal political gain.

Ronald Reagan endorses President Gerald Ford at the 1976 Republican National Convention after a bitter primary, setting himself up to be the standard-bearer for the party in 1980.

What you saw last night was the real Ted Cruz unveiled, a man who claims to stand on the principles you hold dear, yet finds nothing wrong with breaking his word and using dirty campaign tricks. For the Mark Levin sycophants who still think Mr. Cruz did nothing wrong to Ben Carson the day of the Iowa caucus, let us just tell you that everyone following the campaign on the trail knows what he did.

Let us also remind you that a man died volunteering for Dr. Carson and his memory deserves more than your wishful thinking and willful ignorance. You wanted to believe it? Well, so did we. But it’s a lie.

Mr. Cruz is the kind of person who, once he’s made up his mind, doesn’t know how to take advice, admit he’s wrong or show humility for being wrong. Mr. Cruz bet his entire campaign strategy on the premise that there were tens of millions of previously invisible evangelical voters that haven’t voted in previous elections because Republicans have failed to run someone like him.

He was and still is very, very wrong.

Admittedly, both Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz brought millions of new faith-based voters to the polls during the primary season, but not by the numbers he suggests exist and will be needed to defeat demographic patterns favorable to the Democratic candidate. Those voters who did come out, many for the first time and many for the first time in years, voted for Donald Trump.

Speaking of the Republican nominee, he knew the context of Mr. Cruz’s speech two hours prior and still wanted him to speak. While the media doesn’t cover it, largely because they want to foment disunity, Mr. Trump has gone to great lengths to include his former rivals in the convention and did not make an endorsement a prerequisite to speak.

That speaks volumes about his character as a man and a leader. That’s what real leaders do, America. They bring people together who have different interests, grievances, desires and dreams. But most importantly, they keep their word. The same cannot be said about Mr. Cruz, who followed Donald Trump around like a puppy dog pandering to his voters with the belief he would fade. Then, he turned on him like a rabbit dog once it became clear he would not.

He also turned on those who supported him for the U.S. Senate when he was a nobody, including Gov. Sarah Palin, who he accused via Rep. Steve King of being bribed (bribed!) because she endorsed Donald Trump.

Let us leave you with this final thought: If conservatism means not keeping your word and only looking out for yourself, then we submit the future of conservatism in America is even darker than the empirical evidence indicates.