It wasn’t conservative principles that did Cruz in. It was the “do what it takes to win” campaign and his lack of clarity on issues of trade and cheap foreign labor. Then there was the maddening talking down to folks when they disagreed with him. And, oh yeah, lots of folks aren’t convinced about his natural born citizen status.
Trump stakes out a few leftist positions but he is far more conservative than the average Republican in the House and Senate and this is good enough for me. Trump is the reliable and true conservative on my top issues which are trade and immigration.
Ted Cruz could not be trusted on these. Cruz was highly effective in the Senate and should have been content to do more there. But got a swollen ego and figured he could pull an Obama and catapult himself from freshman Senator to the Republican Presidential nomination to President. He was so ego-driven that he allied himself with GOPe skullduggery the last few months. Trump was very hard on Cruz and drove him to it. Trump made Cruz go crazy.
If a “do what it takes campaign” was his problem, Trump’s vicious “do what it takes campaign” would have done him in... so that’s obviously not the problem.
The problem is that we have an electorate that is too busy, too tired and too well-entertained to think their way through the shiess-storm of information, so they simply went with their emotions, as did the folks who gave us Obama, and voted for the funniest guy.