[MortMan]

Any candidate is responsible for the culture of a campaign. And when you have a campaign that disrespects the voters, when you have a campaign that affirmatively encourages violence, when you have a campaign that is facing allegations of physical violence against members of the press, you create an environment that only encourages this sort of nasty discord.

I'm curious how the clear "Trump and his campaign encouraged this type of thing" equates to you not seeing that Cruz blamed Trump for fostering the climate that lead to this.

And how do you discount the parallel to the "she was wearing a mini skirt, so when she was raped, it was because she encouraged the sexual attention" aspect?

I have favored Cruz over Trump for a long time. But Cruz's campaign, including this last statement from him, makes me wonder if he is even close to who I thought he was. Both candidates were acceptable to me. Cruz is less so, now.

[JediJones]

Cruz didn’t blame him for it, but he said the tone of Trump’s campaign encourages it. That is simply true from a psychological perspective. Rubio is the proof of that. Rubio would not have insulted Trump’s looks and other things if Trump hadn’t done the trash-talking first himself. When a campaign lowers the bar of discourse, they encourage more of it from their opponents. It doesn’t mean the opponent isn’t also responsible for their actions, but lowering the bar when it comes to insults or not condemning violence clearly is a contagious thing.