Exactly! Just like John McCain's bi-partisanship helped him become President... oh wait...
Weak attempt at a parallel if you ask me. Only true conservatives in 2008 knew that McCain was a pretender and member of GOPe in good standing. The rest of the world saw him as a typical conservative versus the natural born socialist with the magic skin color that he was defeated by. So your implication that McCain ran as non-partisan as Trump can run is simply ludicrous. Even the gang-of-eight had not happened yet.
Both McCain and Palin had big rallies in Ohio and Pennsylvania and Michigan but they could NOT close the deal and convince the moderate (D) voters they were anything except the normal stereotype. And neither did Romney/Ryan or Dole/Kemp for that matter.
Like it or not, this guy you are hating on, Trump, is thinking completely outside the box. Are you doubting that he can stand up in one his huge rallies, maybe next time in Detroit or Pittsburgh or Toledo and say with a straight face: "I'm not like the others, THEY are the politicians. Ditch those bureaucrats and try something different". Or better yet, at a major debate on TV looking straight into the camera?
It's kinda weird that people use terms like phony or fraud to insult the one and only candidate who is actually being himself!
BTW, what would a hypothetical candidate Cruz say to the people in Detroit or Pittsburgh or Toledo? Would he even go there? Is there a silent majority of conservatives in hibernation just waiting around for the next Reagan to show up? It's a serious question.
What is Cruz's play for (D)ummycrat votes considering everything that you have already heard come out of his mouth this campaign?
No, he was every Democrat's favorite Republican (to borrow a phrase from Cruz, he's nice and housebroken and polite). They loved him and talked him up big. John Stewart's favorite elephant. Course all that kneecapping of conservatives and bipartisan love fest crap didn't help him at all. As soon as he was the nominee they laid into him (as they did with Romney and will do with Trump). ANY Republican is going to be painted as a puppy-eating baby-rapist that puts kittens in a blender for fun, so trying to reach across the aisle to people that hate us doesn't seem to work to me.
As for the silent majority of conservatives, it seems more like a 40+ percent plurality from what I hear. That's more than self identify as moderate, or as liberal. Yes, one needs to grab Reagan Democrats, but both Cruz AND Trump are vulnerable on that to me. Cruz voted for that crap trade bill, and Trump plays the "jobs Americans won't do" card (like McCain did during the pre Obama amnesty push.). But the main point I'm making is go after the conservatives hardest, they have the largest numbers. Being worried to death about crossover Dems and indies(Romney won indies, big whoop) is what got us in this mess in the first place.