You can couch it however you want.
When you have a critical election, and you take off, after your people first said that you would not because YOU HAD TO STAY because this was a critical election, it only shows that you aren’t confident enough of the results to stay and bask in it, and weighed that being at the memorial would be a better image than sitting in SC and coming in 3rd behind Rubio.
Cruz had already announced that he wasn’t going to attend the funeral. Bad press ensued, so he changed his plans.
He’s as bad as the Clintons, won’t make a move or a statement without polling it first.