One of the last callers to Hannity's radio show yesterday tried to explain the O'Rourke phenomenon to Hannity, but he was being obstinate and refused to get the point.
The caller tried to explain that the only reason that O'Rourke came so close at all in the Texas race was that people were still mad at how Cruz behaved in 2016, dragging out the primary when he had no mathematical chance, stealing delegates, angling for a floor fight, and then refusing to endorse Trump in his graciously awarded prime-time convention speech.
If Cruz had read the tea leaves and dropped out when it was clear he had no chance and became a team player from then on, the Texas race would have been a blowout reelection for him. Hannity insisted that it was just the throes of the campaign, people are "in it to win it," everyone wants to give their all, that's why they run, yada yada yada...
Hannity wasn't acknowledging the caller's point that Cruz stayed in the race way past his expiration date and was just trying to be a spoiler. While Cruz seems to have gotten the message now, his antics lead to his 2018 reelection to be a lot closer than it ought to have been.
The lasting effect was to give O'Rourke a national platform for the Democrats to leverage. O'Rourke's 2016 race might also have been the impetus for Ocasio-Cortez's run in 2018.
-PJ
people were still mad at how Cruz behaved in 2016, dragging out the primary when he had no mathematical chance, stealing delegates, angling for a floor fight, and then refusing to endorse Trump in his graciously awarded prime-time convention speech.
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Not to mention running for President while Canadian.
The proof is in the difference in votes for Gov.