I’m not scoffing at the big tent, just the hypocrisy of those who espouse it in theory but attack someone who is actually putting it into practice for being insufficiently “conservative”.
As I've said before, I like Ted Cruz and I would certainly vote for him in the general if he gets the nomination. But I don't have my hopes up that he would win in the general. Republican votes alone are not enough to win a general election. We would need a significant percentage of the Independent vote and as many as we can get of the traditional Democrat vote (i.e. Reagan Democrats). I'm not happy about that being the case but it's a simple function of demographics as they currently exist. We cannot win the general election without significant crossover vote - and Ted currently has very little crossover appeal.