“Had Trump not run, Cruz would have been an also-ran. Either Rubio or Bush would have won. The GOP establishment turned to Cruz in a last, desperate attempt to prevent Trump from winning. Without Trump in the Race, they would have found a way to torpedo Cruzs campaign.”
yeah, i forgot that the GOPe got behind Cruz in a desperate last-minute Hail Mary, figuring he he would appeal as a Trump-lite ...
however, Cruz is your basic standard slimeball politician who comes across as smarmy and whiny with a literally cringeworthy likeability aura, and if by some miracle Cruz had gotten the nomination, he would have been crushed by Hillary, but that would have been just fine with the GOPe RINOs petrified by Trump (as they well should have been) ...
OTOH, ANYBODY but Trump would have been crushed by Hillary because Trump was the only GOP candidate who was an implacable and undaunted heavy-weight fighter, and who was (and is) a total anti-establishment iconoclast ...
Hillary Clinton was just about the worst presidential candidate I’ve ever seen. (Well, on a major party, anyway.) She did as much to lose the election as Trump did to win it.
She would have been the same amoral idiot no matter who ran.