Day Three Of The Republican Convention Got A Little Wild

Ted Cruz taking the stage here in Cleveland — with a varsity pander about the championship Cavs, no less — is the ultimate politician’s move. And he is giving the ultimate politician’s speech. Without actually endorsing Trump, Cruz congratulated the nominee and is now jumping, based on the prepared remarks, straight into an invocation of Michael Smith, one of the Dallas police officers shot and killed earlier this month, pulling at the heartstrings and then transitioning to his favorite topic: the constitution and states’ rights. That is where Cruz lives. “Freedom means recognizing that our Constitution allows states to choose policies that reflect local values. Colorado may decide something different than Texas. New York different than Iowa. Diversity. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.” This is a speech that is very much about ideas and very much not about Trump. Citing the recent Brexit vote and, vaguely, the Trump train’s rejection of the establishment, Cruz said: “Voters are overwhelmingly rejecting big government. That’s a profound victory.” A man with an eye to 2020, likely with an eye to running a campaign similar to his 2016 one, Cruz is no doubt setting himself up as a standard-bearer of movement conservatism, a guardian of ideas in the personality-driven current Republican Party of Trump.

Marco Rubio isn’t speaking at this convention, but a video of him just played. Many delegates didn’t seem to be paying attention. Rubio was, however, saying Trump’s name. That’s more than you can say for some of the other speakers.

Lynne Patton, Eric Trump Foundation vice president, walked an interesting rhetorical line — acknowledging, unlike many of the past black and nonwhite speakers, that discrimination exists in policing and otherwise, but making the case (perhaps not a case based on his rhetoric, but her case nonetheless) that Donald Trump cares for black lives, blue lives and all lives. She said, in fact, that she endorsed him not in spite of but because of the color of her skin, which is an interesting twist on the long parade of black speakers relative to Trump’s lack of popularity in the black community.