By Dan Calabrese —— Bio and Archives March 30, 2016
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Initially designed to stymie the threat of a Trump independent run, the real-estate mogul's Republican foes have been hamstrung by the signed pledge they all gave to the Republican National Committee in September to back the winner of the party's nominating contest for months. That changed Tuesday night, starting with Cruz, who cited Trump's recent tweets about his wife, Heidi Cruz. "I'm not in the habit of supporting someone who attacked my wife and attacked my family. I think that is going beyond the line," he said. "I'm not an easy person to tick off, but when you go after my wife, when you go after my daughters, that does it." Cruz, however, didn't explicitly say he would oppose Trump's nomination. So Trump let him off the hook. He said Cruz looked "tormented" trying to answer Cooper's "very simple question." "I don't want his support. I don't need his support. I want him to be comfortable," Trump said.
For his part, Trump said he was scrapping the pledge altogether, saying he's "been treated very unfairly" in the contest by the RNC and the party's establishment. Kasich, too, backed off his pledge -- saying he shouldn't have raised his hand when the entire Republican field was asked at the first debate last year whether they'd back the eventual nominee. "Probably shouldn't have even answered that question, but it was the first debate, and what the heck," he said.It was actually not only the first debate when that question was asked and Kasich raised his hand, but "what the heck" pretty well sums up what we've come to expect from the "adult in the room." Have you ever seen a race devolve into this? I haven't, and I've been following them since 1976. I've seen candidates get angry with each other. I've seen things get personal. I've seen vicious attack ads. But I've never seen a candidate, on a debate stage (let alone all the candidates), publicly cast doubt on their own willingness to vote Republican in the fall. And keep in mind this is happening at a time when Democrats are getting ready to nominate the most horrendous candidate for the presidency in anyone's memory - a lying, cheating, self-interested, incompetent fraud who has clearly committed at least one felony that jeopardized national security. That's who we're going to let slip into the White House because we're all so mad at each other?
Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain
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