The conservative Wall Street Journal has come out with an intensely critical editorial of Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz for, the paper says, his “largely synthetic” aggression toward the GOP “establishment.”
Citing Cruz’s attempt to defund Obamacare by way of a federal government shutdown and his penchant for publicly disparaging his fellow Republican senators, the Journal said that if Cruz wants to win the presidency, he would have to make big attempts to regain support from the people he made a habit of alienating.
“This rage-against-the-machine bill of goods catapulted Mr. Cruz to prominence on talk radio, digital media and within a rump wing of the Republican Party,” the paper said. “But the same fury also paved the way for [his rival Donald] Trump, who exploited it with a more blunt-spoken populism on immigration, trade and foreign policy … The difference is that Mr. Cruz knows better, giving himself a chameleon, untrustworthy cast.”
The Journal did credit Cruz with having “a better policy grounding” than Trump, who the paper has repeatedly said is not prepared for the White House, but it said he has “backed himself into a political box canyon that will be hard to escape.”
Cruz currently trails Trump in delegates for the nomination, but appears to be preparing for a brokered convention in July, wherein he would hope to rally freed up delegates to his side.
