Judging by Nicolle Wallace's performance on today's With All Due Respect, it looks like establishment Republicans are going full bore against Ted Cruz. Here was Wallace talking about her personal experience with Ted Cruz: "I worked with him on the [2000 Bush/Gore] recount in Florida, and the recount was sort of ground zero for the biggest egos in both parties in the whole country, and he rose to the top in terms of hubris and egomania."
Co-host John Heilemann was flabbergasted: "you're saying that among all of your colleagues in the recount effort, that he was the biggest ego? Is that really what I heard you say? Wow! That is an incredible thing to say."
Note: when Heilemann asked Wallace to confirm what he had heard, she said that "he was a contender" for biggest ego and that "people talk about it still." She added that "good Republicans" from the Bush administration and who clerked at the Supreme Court "would have a really hard time voting for Ted Cruz if he were the Republican standard bearer."
Note Dos: Cruz was 29 years old during the Florida recount.
Note Tres: Wallace is of course a true Bushie, having served as W's Director of Communications. So it is significant that earlier in the show, she defended Marco Rubio against charges leveled against him in an ad by . . . Jeb's PAC. Could people in Bush world be seeing the handwriting on the wall and shifting their allegiance to the other guy from Florida?
NICOLLE WALLACE: He is truly despised. He is not viewed as a team player. I worked with him on the [2000 Bush/Gore] recount in Florida, and the recount was sort of ground zero for the biggest egos in both parties in the whole country, and he rose to the top in terms of hubris and egomania.
JOHN HEILEMANN: Really?
WALLACE: But he's at the top of the polls in Iowa so I think that voters are saying "we don't care."
HEILEMANN: So you're saying that just like Curt Anderson said Cruz is the biggest narcissist in the Republican race even though Donald Trump's in the field, you're saying that among all of your colleagues in the recount effort, that he was the biggest ego? Is that really what I heard you say?
WALLACE: He was a contender, and people talk about it still.
HEILEMANN: Man!
WALLACE: These are good Republicans who worked in the Bush administration, clerks on the Supreme Court, who say --
HEILEMANN: Wow!
WALLACE: -- they would have a really hard time voting for Ted Cruz if he were the Republican standard bearer.
HEILEMANN: That is an incredible thing to say. I will say of all those attacks going against Cruz, the one thing has the most chance to stick is the notion that he's a hypocrite, that he says one thing to one group and another thing to another group. I think that has real potential to be a problem for him going forward.
