What Went Down In The Indiana Primary

We’ve watched a lot of Republican candidates go down this year. But Ted Cruz’s speech feels the most like a wrap-up of the Reagan era. He’s talking about – and to – the conservative movement. His speech referenced Reagan and the Cold War. And then it pivoted to a discussion of terrorism and ISIS and health care and “race wars.” In other words, it’s not 1988 anymore, a year when the Republican Party nominated a sitting vice president for the first time in almost 30 years, and won a third term in the White House for the first time since Herbert Hoover’s election in 1928. The issues are new ones, and the terms of debate have changed. I doubt that’s what Cruz had in mind, but that’s how it sounded to me.