GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz is widely "loathed" in Washington, by voters, and with his own party, and he "will never be the nominee of the Republican Party" should there be a contested convention this summer, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough declared Wednesday, and he thinks House Speaker Paul Ryan would be more likely to walk away with the nod.
"Right now, the guy is loathed, and he is loathed inside D.C.," Scarborough said on his
"Morning Joe" program. "I mean, I know a lot of the establishment hates Donald Trump, but Ted Cruz is the devil they know and they don't like him. He won't win the nomination. Right now he's a vehicle to stop Donald Trump."
"And a very poor one," co-host Mika Brzezinski interjected.
"So it will be Donald Trump or somebody else," Scarborough said. "I don't know, maybe Ted Cruz is the most wonderful person in the world when he's throwing baseballs with his neighborhoods and barbecuing, but he is not on TV a likable guy."
Further, he was behind the government shutdown in Washington, Brzezinski pointed out, so he is not liked among his colleagues.
John Heilemann, the co-managing editor of Bloomberg Politics, commented that even though powerful people backed Cruz in Wisconsin, it wasn't because they are actually on the Texas senator's side, but instead they're fighting back against Trump.
"They're trying to get to a contested convention and they're either secretly for [Ohio Gov. John] Kasich or [Marco] Rubio or Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney, they're for somebody else," said Heilemann.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is the "clearest example of this," he continued, because the governor said before he endorsed Cruz that "'we'll have a contested convention and it will be someone who's not Ted Cruz but I'll back Ted Cruz for now.'"
Scarborough said Wisconsin was different that usual states because voters chose Cruz to make a statement, and that even though pundits predict that will happen, usually it doesn't.
"That never happens," he said. "It's bull. People go in and they vote their heart, very rarely their head. Wisconsin last night did something I've never seen before. You had suburban people who loathed Ted Cruz, disconnected from him ideologically, disconnected from his socially, temperamentally, just like Charlie Sykes.
"They went in and it's extraordinary, they made the calculation we're not going to vote for John kasich, we're going to vote for guy who's most like to stop Donald Trump."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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