Ted Cruz gives exceptional speech touting conservatism . . . but the crowd wanted something else

Remember, Donald Trump personally asked Ted Cruz to speak last night at the RNC. Cruz said he would be delighted to do so. Both surely expected that the speech would be about the virtues of conservatism and not about the virtues of Donald Trump. It was, and the crowd loved that. If you were watching it with a will-he-or-won't-he mindset concerning an endorsement of Trump, you were bound to be disappointed. Cruz was always going to focus on the differences between the two parties, and did so very effectively by covering everything from respect for law enforcement to the proper role of the courts to the overall meaning and value of freedom. In fact, Cruz asked an especially good question when talking about the recent inclination of federal courts to strike down any state law not to the liking of the liberal establishment. If states can't pass their own laws, "What's the point of having states at all?"