A ‘Cruz Coup’ Just Won’t Work
As we conclude yet another fascinating week in the 2016 presidential horse race, news of a potential plot to oust Republican nominee Donald Trump has leaked out.
Well, “leak” probably isn’t the best way to describe it, since that would imply there’s an effort to conceal the rumor. Far from keeping it secret, some of Ted Cruz’s former backers are calling publicly for drastic action at next month’s Republican convention.
Ryan Lovelace of the Washington Examiner reports, “Officials from Ted Cruz’s defunct presidential campaign are talking up the possibility of a coup at next month’s Republican convention in Cleveland.
“Whether the anger and chatter about a coup among Cruz’s ardent supporters materializes at the convention remains to be seen, but it appears to have gained steam following the fallout of Trump’s racial invective directed at the presiding federal judge in a lawsuit regarding Trump University.”
In his article, Lovelace quotes Cruz supporters Bob Vander Plaats and Steve Deace of Iowa and Steve Lonegan of New Jersey appealing to Republican delegates to take power into their own hands and remove Trump as the party presidential nominee.
It’s safe to say all of us who were and are Ted Cruz fans get a rush of adrenaline whenever we see something like Lovelace’s headline, which reads “Former Cruz campaign officials push for delegate coup at GOP convention.“
What could possibly be better than having our favorite principled conservative candidate storm the convention, have the delegates immediately respond to his presence, forget about Donald Trump instantaneously and start voting for Cruz right there on the spot?
Just think of the news coverage such a scenario would generate. Even the obsolete major networks would break from their evening reality TV programming to cover an extra hour or so of the tumult from the Republican convention. Fox News would be in a tizzy. Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity would be shouting “foul!” while demanding that Cruz immediately disavow the rumors of a coup.
Donald Trump himself would resurrect “Lyin’ Ted” and go back to railing on the Republican Party, complete with predictions that his supporters would take to the streets if he’s denied the nomination.
Buuuuuuzzzzzzzz! The alarm goes off, you wake up and it was all a dream.
A Ted Cruz coup at next month’s convention is just a flat-out bad idea for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, there’s no popular support for it. Republican leaders are dissing Trump and even a few have abandoned him, but that doesn’t mean the voters are feeling the same urge. I’ve seen nothing in the news indicating Trump’s grass-roots supporters are greatly offended by anything he’s done or said recently.
Some are probably a little skittish at the tone of The Donald’s remarks and how they’re being received by the public as a whole, but is anything Trump’s done lately that far apart from what he already did during the primaries
Second, there’s no infrastructure in place for a Cruz nomination now. Even if Ted were somehow able to wrest the title away from Trump, how would it work from a logistical standpoint in terms of running a national campaign?
The Republican Party has all of its wheels in motion planning for a Donald Trump candidacy. How could they just stop and turn on a dime, shifting immediately to a completely different candidate?
Third, even if the delegates ousted Trump and nominated Cruz in his place, the chances of Ted winning in the general election would be slim and none.
Successful coups usually install a dictator backed by the military to keep order after a leader is deposed. There would be no such similarity at a party convention, but I doubt Cruz would be looked upon too highly by the voters for agreeing to be the “dictator” who throws off the public will in order to please a bunch of whiners intent on saving a political party.
Lastly, Ted Cruz himself wouldn’t go for such a far-fetched idea. Without popular support, Cruz knows he’d never be able to pull off such a daring and risky maneuver. The publicity would be enormous but it would also be sensational and probably heavily negative.
Cruz has a promising future as a leader of the conservative movement and Republican Party. Does anyone seriously believe he’d be willing to risk everything for the off chance that such a scheme could succeed?
Cruz just isn’t interested in being a sacrificial lamb, and rightly so. That’s a job much more suited for wishy-washy politicians like Paul Ryan and Jeb Bush.
As for Cruz’s supporters who are calling for the coup, they kind of remind me of the many movie depictions of General Robert E. Lee’s troops reacting to the news of his surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox. “No Marse Robert! We want to fight on!”
In his farewell address, Lee talked about the need to end the fighting because he could no longer bear the “useless sacrifice” of his men facing such overwhelming odds.
I doubt Cruz would take a similar approach to Lee in telling his supporters “no thanks,” but I also surmise Cruz wouldn’t want any part of this “dream” to kick out Trump and put him in his place. This may be a cozy fantasy for the former Cruz supporters and even many of the Republican delegates, but in practical reality, it just isn’t feasible.
The “cause” is lost for Cruz in 2016. But unlike in the American Civil War, he doesn’t have to linger on as a vanquished foe. Cruz can still take part in the process and have a major influence on the direction of the country, both in the near term and down the road, perhaps in another run for president.
Cruz’s coup proponents as well as the other elements of #NeverTrump will just have to get used to the idea this election is Trump vs. Clinton. Man up and make your choice.
