Who Wins If the Pro-Cruz Delegates Walk Out?

There were reports Monday night that Republican delegates who remain loyal to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) are planning to stage a walkout during Donald Trump’s acceptance speech Thursday evening.

The announcement alone suggests it’s not meant as a true protest—at least it wasn’t before the rules vote—but was rather meant to gain concessions on behalf of Cruz at the convention. Among those that haven’t been fully addressed prior to Tuesday night’s Roll Call of States is whether or not Cruz’ name will be entered into nomination.

Several outlets have reported there is an agreement by which Cruz will be free to speak his mind—and he won’t have to officially endorse Trump—in exchange for his supporters “behaving” themselves. If the agreement falls through, former Washington Times editor-in-chief Wesley Pruden says it will be the “last yelps of sore losers.”

“Time is running out for the sore losers in Cleveland (and other places),” he wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday in the Times. “Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee, and attacks on him now, deserved or not, are attacks on the party and can only cripple the chances of taking back the White House.

“Elephants have long memories, and losers in the primaries who have further presidential ambitions, imagining that four years of Hillary Clinton will whet a ravenous appetite for someone else in the year 2020, had better think this through. Anyone who helps Hillary this year, however good it might feel now, will pay dearly four years hence.

“The agents out to demolish the Trump candidacy still roamed the hotel corridors, coffee shops and drinking holes along the Lake Erie shore Monday night, spreading doubt, confusion and resentment, and eager to share their cultivated rage with anyone willing to listen. Not many delegates were.

“One Trump delegate likened the ragtag Never Trump forces, many of them hungry and barefoot from their fruitless pursuit of faithless delegates, to the Japanese stragglers in the South Pacific jungles who held their hopes close for decades after all the armies had gone home.”