Steve Deace on Ted Cruz's Endorsing DJT

Source: Steve Deace | September 24, 2016 | Steve Deace

Some thoughts the morning after.

The toughest part about what I do for a living is I have to constantly make a choice between being a shill or being honest. This business leaves you little room in between (it does love its flawed, binary choices after all), and isn’t much for distinctions.

Yet, I keep trying to draw them anyway, thus ticking off nearly everybody in the process.

This becomes particularly problematic when you develop relationships with people. Which is unavoidable unless you’re Vulcan, and then even in that case Spock made friends after a 5-year mission on the Enterprise. However, relationships are complicated. For they both cloud things and provide clarity simultaneously. On the one hand, they allow you to know more than the average person does because of the access. But they also cause you to project on the other, because you see what you want to see more so than what actually is.

Here’s what that means in the context of Cruz’s decision to endorse Trump yesterday.

I believe it’s a colossal political mistake. I believe it could be the worst miscalculation I’ve ever seen. I think it greatly diminishes the odds he’ll ever be president. I don’t take back a word of what I wrote for Conservative Review yesterday, even after sleeping on it. If anything, the fallout yesterday through last night was worse than I had feared. At this point, if there’s another Iowa Caucus in 2020, Cruz will need to perform triage on his organization.

But Ted Cruz is still my friend.

Last fall, when I made perhaps the biggest blunder I’ve ever committed (which is saying something) with my ridiculous comments regarding Carly Fiorina’s anatomy, Fox News and Ted’s other political enemies drove the story into the ground in an effort to use me to damage him. I told him while this was going down to throw me under the bus, because I definitely deserved it.

But he didn’t. “I know you and you’re a good man Steve,” Cruz messaged me at the time. “We all make mistakes. It’s how we come back from them that matters.”

He showed me grace at a time something like that could’ve possibly banished me to the broadcasting equivalent of a gulag. And Ted didn’t have to. In fact, it was politically the wrong move to make at the time. But he thought it was the right thing to do because of our friendship.

If this weren’t politics, in any other walk of life most human beings would agree you owe your brother a solid in return when the time comes after something like that. Except in politics we often lose ourselves. Our humanity and integrity. Our perspective and sense of purpose, let alone our priorities.

I’m going to do my best not to let that happen to me, which is why I will return the favor. Ted Cruz is my friend. Aside from this decision, he’s never let me down before. He’s taken more crap for the values I’ve spent my career fighting for than anyone else in elected office has. That should mean something.

That doesn’t mean I don’t think he’s deserving of disappointment and criticism. I think I’ve exemplified both of those this week, thank you very much. Before anyone asks, yes we have talked privately and transparently about all of this. Though no minds were changed we’re still friends as far as I know and I’ll leave it at that.

However, if you’re skeptical, scornful, and just downright angry at his decision you have every right to be. And it’s nobody’s job but Ted’s to convince you otherwise. He made this decision himself, so it’s his job alone to deal with the consequences. Nor does it mean I’m already back on the bandwagon for a future presidential run, especially since if I go there I may be asked to help soothe some of these relationships and I’m not ready for that yet by any means.

But that decision doesn’t have to be made today, so I won’t. The decision that does have to be made today is this one: am I going to give up on somebody for a letdown, even a colossal one, who’s never let me down before? And who didn’t give up on me when the shoe was on the other foot?

The right answer, I believe, is no I won’t. I’m still proud to call Ted Cruz a friend, even if what he’s doing right now doesn’t make sense to me and I don’t agree with it. I think this was the wrong call, but I can’t forget all the times he made the right one, either.

That’s the least I could do for a friend.

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  • Consistent #10213

    ConservativeGranny #10225

    Well, Ted Cruz isn’t my personal friend. His campaign did get a lot of my money though. He hasn’t done anything personally for me so I guess I really don’t owe him anything. If he refunds my money though I may give him a break:)

    EVERYDAY #10227

    CG: That money has been spent. You’re out of luck. 😊

    I gave to Cruz’s campaign too. Today I received a solicitation to contribute to his senate campsign. I hand wrote a note to the effect that it’s too bad he put politics over the good of the country and I’m cutting him off.

    Supposedly, Cruz has good reasons for doing what he did, but I’m not feeling it. To defeat Hillary, he blew up his political career. He may well win re-election to the Senate, but his presidential aspirations are over. I wish him well in the private sector.

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