[Hoot Gibson]

You just called everybody who supports Trump cult members not long ago, I guess you just don't like the irony. Trump won and those who voted for him are getting screwed because Kasich and Cruz can't find the grace to cede the primary. I wouldn't normally say that, but Cruz's chances are less than thin. The will of the voter is down the list somewhere, with the aspirations of certain candidates being the priority consideration. Not to mention the fact that just about everybody seems just fine with rules violations of every possible sort, and a forced contested convention. If Cruz was in the lead with the clear shot at the required delegate requirement you'd be screaming your head off about Trump and Cruz being usurpers. Would you not?

But you missed way wide of the mark on your second paragraph. I will try this one last time to lay out my case. First, I like Cruz and feel we could do worse. Second, this was a Republic the last time I checked. Therefore all who would disenfranchise the millions who have voted for Trump are in my book a bunch of anarchists. The way people talk in negative terms about Trump is a disgrace. They're trying to manipulate the political system using propaganda, and if all I knew was that the Demoncrats and the Republicans along with the media had joined together in an unholy scheme to go around the will of the people, it would be enough.

I wasn't equating Cruz with Obama. I was pointing out that for the most part, Obama fits the qualifications of the kind of candidate you seem to be presently demanding, and look how that turned out. First you came out with the revelation that Trump was running a spoiler campaign for Hillary. Now you're saying because I refuse to get on board the train to destroy what's left of the political process I'm bordering on lunacy. In my view, you just have no way to justify speaking in such disparaging terms with regard to Trump. But, even if you're right, when we circumvent the process what's left?

If there is a rat in the woodpile this time around, my bet would be that it looks an awful lot like Paul Ryan. And from what I have heard, he wants the job himself, or wants to parachute in somebody else.

You have this annoying habit of assuming that you know what I would do in any number of situations. My political philosophy has not changed. I have supported the constitutional originalist and consistent conservative Ted Cruz for president since before he was sworn in as a U.S. Senator. I have consistently opposed liberal Democrats like Donald Trump.

This is not rocket science, Trump has always been a liberal and supported liberal politicians. He has told lie after lie and flip-flopped like a gymnist this entire campaign. Before he spoke to AIPAC, he made statements that he would be neutral in his treatment of Israel and the Palestinians; and he also promised to make Israel pay for its own defense. Then, in his speech Monday night, he told members of AIPAC the exact opposite. But the important thing to you is that the audience clapped when they were suppose to clap. The lesson that you should have taken away from the speech is that Trump says whatever he thinks voters want to hear at a given point in time.

I have never had an issue with candidates remaining in a campaign until they have no chance of winning. I have always had an issue with candidates like Kasich, in this election, and Huckabee in past elections, staying in races to play spoiler for another candidate. Cruz not only still has a chance to win a majority of candidates, he also has a chance to win a plurality of candidates going into the convention if he fails to win the majority. Even if he does not pass Trump in the delegate count, if the race is close and neither get a majority, if he finishes strong and wins more Republican votes in key closed primaries, then he would be the favorite to emerge from the convention as the nominee.

None of that scenario violates the rules of the GOP convention. A candidate either wins the majority of delegates on the first ballot, or delegates become "unpledged" at some point in subsequent voting. That is how it has always been with conventions and I don't recall any candidate making veiled threats that his supporters will riot if that candidate failed to win the nomination with a plurality of delegates.

Whether Cruz withdraws from the race or not has nothing to do with "grace," but why would one care about "grace," when one supports the most graceless campaigner in modern history?

My position on candidates withdrawing is the same as it was when Romney and McCain ran for president, and it is the same as it would be if Cruz was in the lead. When McCain won the nomination, Huckabee stayed in the race all through the southern primaries, despite having no money and no chance of winning the nomination himself, and he did so to block Romney from having any shot at winning by splitting the conservative vote.

Sorry that you find the way that I criticize Trump a disgrace, because I find it a disgrace that there are actually people in this country who support such a clown. I also find it disgraceful that Trump supporters join him in ridiculing other people's religion. That is something that I have never done and will never do. Trump questioning the beliefs of Cruz, Rubio, and Romney, would be reason enough for me to deny Trump my support, but he provides so many other reasons, that it does not even make my Top 10.

Do you ever wonder why Trump still has not managed to put together a full team of foreign policy and economic advisers? My theory is that it must be very hard to get teams of experts to risk their careers by associating themselves with Trump's nutty ideas like reviving the kind of tariffs that deepened and extended the Great Depression, which is what the Smoot Tariff Act of 1930 did. Consumers pay tariffs and workers pay with their jobs when other countries retaliate with their own tariffs. We need better trade deals but we do not need another Great Depression triggered by a moronic president.

Trump is neither a creative nor a deep thinker. As I said, he says what people want him hear and, if elected, he will either abandon his foolish campaign promises, or history will repeat itself as he pursues policies that have alrady failed repeatedly. Promises of building a wall, which Ted Cruz proposed in 2012, and promising to "make Mexico pay for it" do not make up for Trump's many areas of extreme ignorance.