It didn’t sound like an endorsement. However, he did say “vote up and down the ticket” for liberty and freedom. In technical terms, that’s an endorsement of every Republican candidate.
I think it will soon be forgotten and for a while, so will Ted Cruz. His future depends on what happens in November and beyond. Either a Clinton win or a bad experience with Trump (something I don’t foresee personally) works in his favor. A good Trump presidency followed by a second term pushes his future ambitions to 2024. So this speech may be a sort of compromise between endorsement and something more overtly negative that he could use as a “told ya so” — in other words, he just repeated his own set of principles and left it at that.
In a way, it’s a subtle message to Trump — measure up to these principles, and you will succeed. I’m not sure if it’s that simple, but he has a point, Trump as a newcomer to politics has yet to set much of a track record on questions of constitutional law. His objectives are good, but can he reach them through constitutional means?
Ted Cruz probably had a speech more suited to a law school than a party convention. He watered it down and made some points that may come back into circulation down the road. Or a Reaganesque presidency could bury them under many layers of irrelevance.
Actually, here’s a thought completely out of left field — do you suppose maybe the speech was meant to sound so non-partisan (in terms of Trump) that it would ease the path towards Trump nominating Cruz to the Supreme Court?
Democrats would of course be opposed, but he’s taken one major weapon out of their hands, namely, “you can’t nominate such a blatant partisan of your administration to the politically neutral Supreme Court.”
Perhaps this tone was struck with some agreement after all.