Mitt Romney's reckoning came over the weekend. After being the Republican establishment's standard-bearer in 2012, declining a 2016 run because of the crowded "mainstream" field, and making an ill-advised anti-Trump speech earlier this month, Romney has been reduced to the previously unthinkable: stumping for Ted Cruz.
In phone calls recorded ahead of Tuesday's GOP caucuses in Utah and primary in Arizona, Romney can be heard urging voters to vote for the Texas senator, but only "because a vote for [Ohio Gov.] John Kasich is a vote for Donald Trump." To defeat Trump, Romney says, "this is a time for Republicans across the spectrum to unite behind Ted":
Romney does espouse Cruz's passionate defense of the Constitution and hawkish instincts, but the call's message really amounts to this: "Vote for him so the other guy doesn't win, and because the guy I really like has no chance." And if that's not the stuff of inspiring democracy, what is?
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