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Try this on for size about Cruz.

We all knew about his wife working for Goldman Sucks; about how he forgot to record the personal loan to his campaign from his 401(k); about his not knowing whether he was natural born.

We also learned that he was being funded by a hedge fund billionaire, Mercer, who is taking a page from the Obama campaign and using intensely focused data analytics to craft Cruz's message.

All above board, or at least, not much more or less sleazy in magnitude, or less excusable, than any politician at this level participates in.

But...but...with his hiring of the Lee Atwater-wannabe, Roe, and the focus on dirty tricks and skirting the edge of the truth, ...

what has he done?

Well, Cruz's original tactic, focus, strategy, has been to go for the Tea Party crowd: the *true* faithful; and of those, to concentrate on the Christian Evangelicals: the die-hards who remain faithful no matter *what* the press says or does about their candidate.

In most years, that might've been enough get him to the nomination, or close to it.

But two things happened.

First, Trump: stealing the oxygen from the room, and forcing Cruz to fight for what amount to scraps of the pie, with Carson, and Rubio, and the GOP-e cannon fodder. Without ALL of the religious vote going his way, plus what amounts to a plurality from non-religious disaffected conservative, Cruz's strategy doesn't work.

Enter the hiring of Roe : and the tinge of nastiness, the shove-and-"who, me?" whistling immediately afterward; the accusation with a bit of viciousness, the brushback pitch with some "English" on the ball...

Those might be OK, after Trump did it.

But ...that nastiness, is the opposite of his chosen and implied role, of the super-intellect, the sage, or the gentle long-suffering Christian *gentleman* he had cultivated up to this point.

So when his marketing brochure and his in-person persona contradict each other, people's scam radar goes off: and after being sold out by everyone from George H.W. Bush "read my lips" and "compassionate conservatism" to the GOP-e attacking Sharon Angle, Todd Aikin, and championing Murkowski in Alaska and Thad Cochran in Mississippi, after promising to cut the deficit then rolling over for Obama, after not fighting Obama's prior Supreme Court justices NOR Obamacare (where *another*! turncoat, John Roberts, allowed it despite black and white slam-dunk language to overturn it)...

People are sick of being lied to.

And with today's GOP-rank-and-file, you don't get *ANY strikes, you're not allowed "just one LITTLE lie".

But Cruz for his vaunted intelligence, doesn't seem to have cottoned to that fact yet: or else he overestimates his Harvard pedigree: just as arrogant and "I'm better than you" as the Dems are. I'm not sure which.

I really enjoyed reading your analysis. Thanks for writing it.

Ted is about 2 decades too late to convince evangelicals of his bonafides as a True Christian. Every time I see him speak, visions of Jimmy Swaggart & Jim Baker interrupt my thought processes. And like you said, with so many others in the race to siphon off his evangelicals, it’s just not going to happen. So much for his 3-year long “cultivation” of tea partiers, eh?

Two months ago, I was hoping Ted Cruz would realize he cannot win this time and either 1) play nice with Trump and wait for his appointment to VP, the SC, or Attorney General, or 2) drift off into the sunset on his horse and work out his career frustrations as a high-priced Texas attorney.

Instead of choosing one of the wiser career paths above, he is quickly burning his bridges by hiring Roe and playing dirty. This either means he is not a person of good character, willing to sell his soul for a fast track to stardom, or it means his judgment is seriously flawed. Either way, it proves he’s just not capable of being the president we need to get us out of this mess.

It also means that he’s perfectly capable of giving his delegates to Rubio or Bush, especially after the GOPe offers him prestige and revenge against Trump. In fact, his bridge-burning with Trump has taken such a harsh tone, it probably means the GOPe has already promised him something.

Unless Trump sweeps the primaries, it’s Brokered Convention, here we come....