{"id":7397,"date":"2016-07-21T23:49:40","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T06:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/alaska-gop-chair-cruz-speech-a-petulant-misfire\/"},"modified":"2016-07-21T23:49:40","modified_gmt":"2016-07-22T06:49:40","slug":"alaska-gop-chair-cruz-speech-a-petulant-misfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/alaska-gop-chair-cruz-speech-a-petulant-misfire\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaska GOP chair: Cruz speech a ‘petulant’ misfire"},"content":{"rendered":"

JUNEAU \u2014 <\/strong>The Alaska Republican party chairman said he would be surprised if Texas Sen. Ted Cruz could be a serious future presidential contender following a GOP national convention speech in which Cruz failed to endorse the party\u2019s presidential nominee, Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

State chairman Tuckerman Babcock said he was left speechless by Cruz\u2019s Wednesday evening address, calling it a \u201cpetulant\u201d reaction by Cruz to losing the nomination to Trump. Cruz missed an opportunity to be diplomatic, Babcock said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sat there in shock,\u201d Babcock said Thursday, describing the boos from the convention hall in Ohio as \u201cdeafening.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I thought: What a misjudgment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Babcock said he was in a section for alternate delegates at the time. When Cruz came on stage, a woman nearby yelled, \u201cI love you, Ted;\u201d as the speech wore on, she said, \u201cOh, come on, Ted, please,\u201d Babcock said. The woman was in tears at the end, he said.<\/p>\n

He said his reaction the day after the speech was, \u201cWhy would anyone care what Sen. Cruz has to say at this point?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim Crawford, chairman of Trump\u2019s campaign in Alaska, said by text message Thursday that people in politics must decide whether to keep their word. He said Cruz\u2019s personal ambition won over keeping his word, and Cruz is now \u201cimmaterial\u201d to the 2016 campaign.<\/p>\n

Cruz told his home-state delegation that the unconditional support for the GOP nominee he had promised earlier this year disappeared \u201cthe day this became personal,\u201d citing attacks on his family by Trump.<\/p>\n

Crawford, a Trump delegate for Alaska, said conservative Republicans and independents are coming together with a goal of electing Trump. \u201cThe Trump campaign certainly doesn\u2019t need the few Cruz holdouts left to win Alaska,\u201d Crawford wrote.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Related stories:<\/p>\n

Months later, Juneau tenants displaced by fire still long for home<\/a><\/p>\n

Juneau student takes gold at Juneau Olympics<\/a><\/p>\n

Leave it to beavers: Live cameras at Steep Creek offer glimpse into nature<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JUNEAU \u2014 The Alaska Republican party chairman said he would be surprised if Texas Sen. Ted Cruz could be a serious future presidential contender following a GOP national convention speech in which Cruz failed to endorse the party\u2019s presidential nominee, Donald Trump. State chairman Tuckerman Babcock said he was left speechless by Cruz\u2019s Wednesday evening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":7398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-7397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7397"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}