{"id":170400,"date":"2016-07-20T23:08:21","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T05:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=170400"},"modified":"2016-10-12T13:10:06","modified_gmt":"2016-10-12T19:10:06","slug":"ted-cruz-trumps-bid-for-unity-at-gop-convention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/07\/ted-cruz-trumps-bid-for-unity-at-gop-convention\/","title":{"rendered":"Ted Cruz trumps bid for unity at GOP convention"},"content":{"rendered":"

COMMENTARY:\u00a0<\/strong>You might have thought Ted Cruz<\/a> was going out of business when he shut down the federal government and read Green Eggs and Ham<\/i> on the Senate floor.<\/p>\n

\"Ross

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Ross Ramsey<\/p><\/div>\n

Or when he filed the paperwork to run for the Senate in the first place, taking on a sitting lieutenant governor, a big-city mayor and a former football star.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, it wasn\u2019t what he did, but what he didn\u2019t do: Cruz took the stage on the penultimate night of the Republican National Convention, congratulated Donald Trump for winning the nomination, talked about the direction of the party and his hopes for the country, told voters to be sure to show up in November and to vote their consciences, and said goodnight.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t say which candidates would get his vote and didn\u2019t tell voters how to cast their own.<\/p>\n

No love there for Trump, who at the end of the long and bizarre Republican primaries sideswiped Cruz, his most threatening challenger, by attacking his wife and his father.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, that bill came due for Trump, who risked giving his rival a microphone for the boost that would surely have accompanied a Cruz endorsement in a room where many delegates would have preferred the Texan over the New Yorker.<\/p>\n

In the future, it might be trouble for Cruz. But who knows? Impossible things have become commonplace in this year\u2019s primaries. Candidates have survived words and actions that would certainly have sunk them in previous years.<\/p>\n