Story highlights Mitt Romney suggests support for Cruz could help efforts against Trump

Party veteran Haley Barbour said that kind of talk is at least premature

(CNN) In the debate over how to stop Donald Trump's roll to the GOP presidential nomination, not everybody in the Republican Party is willing to subscribe to Mitt Romney's strategy of consolidating behind Ted Cruz.

Haley Barbour, the former Mississippi governor and Republican National Committee chairman, said any rush to get behind Cruz -- or any single candidate for that matter -- would short-change the process.

"I am not of a mind that people ought to be for somebody they're not for because of some strategy that somebody's dreamed up," Barbour said in an interview. "I still think there's plenty of time to be for who you think would make the best president."

Romney announced Friday he would vote for Cruz in the Utah caucuses, saying in a Facebook post that the Texas senator was the only candidate remaining that could stop Trump. The vote was not an endorsement.

Instead, Romney said backing Cruz was the best way to deny Trump the requisite delegates needed to secure the nomination before the Republican convention. Should that happen, it would force an open convention -- and an opportunity to deny Trump the nomination, even if he held the most delegates.

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