Sen. Ted Cruz said this week that many candidates who went after GOP front-runner Donald Trump early on in the race “ended up as roadkill” and said he needed to devote the early part of his own campaign to organizing and building a team to get his own message out.
“Well, listen — there is a season to politics,” Mr. Cruz said Wednesday at a forum in Wisconsin when asked why it took him so long to go after Mr. Trump.
“We started, there were 17 candidates in this race. It was a wonderfully diverse, talented, dynamic, young field,” he said. “Really incredible talent. If you look at a number of the candidates that took on Donald Trump early on, they ended up as roadkill.”
“Our objective was simple from the beginning — it is to win this race, to win the nomination and then beat Hillary Clinton and turn this country around,” Mr. Cruz said.
“And not be roadkill,” offered WTMJ radio host Charlie Sykes, who was questioning Mr. Cruz at the “Insight 2016” forum.
“And not be roadkill,” Mr. Cruz said. “I am very strongly committed on the anti-roadkill approach.”
Former candidates like Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry actually devoted speeches to denouncing Mr. Trump last year, but both men ended up dropping out before December.
“And so our approach was quite simple — we needed to build our base first,” Mr. Cruz said. “We needed … to get my positive message out, my record out, and build and assemble our team.”
Mr. Cruz said he now has more than 260,000 volunteers nationwide and received more than 1 million contributions.
“Starting at the beginning of this year, I began drawing sharp contrasts with Donald,” he said. “Now, I make a difference. You know, Donald when he’s upset, he insults, he ridicules, he attacks, he attacks your wife. … He goes into the gutter immediately. I have not, and I will not respond in kind.”
The latest development came late Wednesday when Mr. Trump shared someone else’s post on Twitter of an unflattering picture of Mr. Cruz’s wife, Heidi, next to a picture of Mr. Trump’s own wife, Melania.
Mr. Cruz responded by tweeting: “Donald, real men don’t attack women. Your wife is lovely, and Heidi is the love of my life.”
Mr. Cruz has seen some movement in recent polling, but Mr. Trump has been able to build an advantage in the delegate count to the point where Mr. Cruz will now have to win some 90 percent or so of the remaining delegates to clinch the nomination before the Republican convention in July.
Mr. Trump now has 739 delegates, Mr. Cruz has 465 and Ohio Gov. John Kasich has 143, according to the latest tally from The Associated Press. A candidate needs 1,237 to win a majority.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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