Several conservative voices who were once supportive of Donald Trump, or at least open to him, are bristling at his latest tactics. A significant number of conservatives found Trump to be close to their pugnacious-style communicative ideal and Cruz to be close to their conservative policy ideal, and they don’t like watching the former beat up the latter on sketchy terms.
“I don’t think Ted Cruz has a great chance, to be honest with you,” Trump said this morning to ABC News ‘George Stephanopoulos. “Look, the truth is, he’s a nasty guy. He was so nice to me. I mean, I knew it. I was watching. I kept saying, ‘Come on Ted. Let’s go, okay.’ But he’s a nasty guy. Nobody likes him. Nobody in Congress likes him. Nobody likes him anywhere once they get to know him. He’s a very –- he’s got an edge that’s not good. You can’t make deals with people like that and it’s not a good thing. It’s not a good thing for the country. Very nasty guy.”
This morning Trump suggested he may file a lawsuit against Cruz’s eligibility to be president, because he would have standing to challenge it as Cruz’s rival. “That sounds like a very good case. I’d do the public a big favor. It’s a good idea– maybe I’ll talk to them about it. I’d like to talk to Ted about it, see how he’d feel about it. ‘Cause you know, when I file suits, I file real suits.”
Yesterday radio talk show host Mark Levin offered Trump friendly advice: “Either cut the crap – your accusations this morning that Cruz is Canadian, a criminal, owned by big banks, etc. – or you will lose lots and lots of conservatives.”
Daniel Horowitz* writes, “with Trump leading in all the national polls just a few weeks from the start of the primaries, there is little discussion about where he stands on some of the critical issues or about his very recent and dramatic evolutions even on the issue of immigration.” (That may depend on where you’re looking for discussion.)
Around Twitter…
@redsteeze@claytalks no.. Trump needs to heed that warning. He is bleeding support with every tweet. Too bad he’s too angry to notice
— Conservative Sue (@conservativesue) January 16, 2016@realDonaldTrump : you are wrong on these issues. You were my favorite candidate. I am switching to Sen. Cruz. @GeraldoRivera@SenTedCruz
— Peter G Jansen (@PGJansen) January 16, 2016@realDonaldTrump You’ve lost me Donald. Everyone knows NYC is Liberal Left & Socialist. Switching to Cruz.
— Rodney (@rodneyb495) January 16, 2016Gee, it’s a shame that no conservatives argued against Trump in the past six months, pointing out that he’s never been conservative, is completely inconsistent in his views, comments, and perspective, that he’s an opportunist who’s willing to punch below the belt, and so on. If only they had! Then all of these disillusioned one-time Trump fans wouldn’t be so surprised!
* This post originally said “David Horowitz” — also conservative but a different man.
Cruz-Friendly Conservatives Suddenly See Trump Clearly