Day Three Of The Republican Convention Got A Little Wild

I’m tempted to make a Simpsons-esque “they’re not booing, they’re saying Crooooz” joke, but that’s just as bad. But seriously, I disagree with Nate — I thought the speech was playing well at first and then completely went off the rails. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I should point out that Cruz’s non-endorsement of Trump doesn’t mean most Republicans aren’t behind the nominee. For instance, the latest CBS News and Marist polls have Trump defeating Clinton among Republicans by an average of 77 percent to 7 percent when Libertarian Gary Johnson is included. As I pointed out after Trump clinched the nomination, he’s winning about the same percentage of Republicans that most Republican presidential candidates do.

I’m still a bit dazed by how badly that Cruz speech played out, at least from Trump’s perspective. My initial instinct was that Cruz played it too cute, but obviously the other possibility is that Cruz knew exactly what he was doing and wanted to shiv Trump.