So, practically everyone I've run into at the RNC today - the morning after Ted Cruz's powerful speech last night - is saying that Ted Cruz has committed, "political suicide."
If you ask me, it's more like a conservative lynching.
Stop. Breathe. Calm down.
The media is relishing this death sentence for our constitutional scholar and fighter. They are stirring the pot and hyping the craze. They just love it when we crucify our own.
Here's the reality: We should be praying that Ted Cruz lives to fight another day, because we are all going to be counting on him in his position as a sitting U.S. senator to fight for us.
Whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton wins the White House, we are going to need Sen. Ted Cruz to fight for constitutional principles, as he always has.
Whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton wins the White House, we are going to need Sen. Ted Cruz, in his critical position on the Senate Judiciary Committee, to lead the charge to help confirm constitutional jurists or defeat liberal activist nominees.
I personally hope that Ted Cruz will come around and support the most conservative vice presidential nominee our nation has ever seen, Mike Pence. I pray that wounds will heal and that Ted Cruz's conscience will allow him to support Mike Pence, which means he will also have to vote for Donald Trump. But I am not angry that he is following his conscience. In fact, I was grateful that he boldly told everyone to vote their own conscience.
Ted Cruz told us in his speech to vote up and down the ticket; to show up and vote; that Hillary Clinton must not be elected president. What he did not do is utter the words, "Vote for Donald Trump." Yet, too many of us are willing to sign his political death warrant. How very, very sad.
Yes, Ted Cruz took the pledge along with the other candidates that he would support the party nominee. But Donald Trump went on national television saying that he releases Ted from that pledge; that he did not want Ted to support him if Ted felt in his heart that he should not.
Still, many feel as if Ted Cruz betrayed his promise. I understand. And I pray that he will, sooner than later, find a way to support the ticket in a manner that does not violate his conscience. But I would never, ever beg someone to violate his or her conscience. Ted, you and I - all of us - will be held accountable alone before our God for all of our decisions, including this one. And I will not judge the heart or the motive of a man like Ted Cruz, who I know seeks God's guidance every day.
If you read my column from last week, then you know that I am 100 percent behind Gov. Mike Pence, and I will do everything in my power to help this most conservative vice presidential candidate in history to secure the seat that is one heart beat away from the presidency.
My good friends General Ed Meese, Richard Viguerie, Morton Blackwell, and Becky Norton Dunlop, all heroes of the Reagan Revolution, have taught me over the years that "personnel is policy." It means that you can tell a lot about how a person is going to govern by the people they choose to work with them. Donald Trump didn't just choose a conservative for his VP. He picked a conservative warrior with a proven record for fighting for conservative solutions to challenges in all areas of life. Fiscal social, international, security, education, you name the issue, and Mike Pence has fought and secured victories that promote freedom, faith and family. And he has done it in Congress as well as in his current role as governor of Indiana.
Although I still have reservations about Donald Trump, his choosing Mike Pence to serve with him is a concrete action that causes me to believe he may very well be serious about also choosing from his list of conservative jurists when it's time to make a Supreme Court appointment. And that he will really fight for religious freedom and the right to life. Maybe he will even actually build that wall.
So here's my challenge to my conservative friends: let's not be too quick to kill our own. We need each other for the long haul. Please join me in praying that Ted Cruz will live to fight with us another day.
Lynch Cruz Now?
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