Not much that’s laudatory, apparently. Cruz is the love that chokes on its own words.

It’s a surprise-every-second love. On Friday, Cruz made public reference to — and furiously denied — a National Enquirer story that accused him of affairs.

It’s also a love that makes no promises of its endurance. In fact, many of the Republicans in a faux swoon for the far-right loon don’t really want to see him fly all the way to the White House — or, for that matter, to the nomination.

There’s a tangle of mind-sets at work and strategies in play. They all involve thwarting Trump, but with different outcomes in the end. Bear with me. This requires a bit of explanation.

Few of the Cruz converts actually think he can amass a majority of delegates and win the nomination before the convention. For that to happen, their endorsements of Cruz would have to scare off John Kasich and turn the contest into a two-man race, and Kasich doesn’t seem to be scaring.

The real goal is to buck up Cruz to a point where he prevents Trump from getting that majority and either passes him in the delegate count or draws close. Abracadabra: a contested convention.

Some of the new Cruz devotees indeed hope that he would be the beneficiary of that and the ultimate victor. They expect Cruz to lose the presidency. But then they also expect Trump to lose it — and to lose it in an uglier, more divisive fashion that drags down Republicans running for the House and Senate too. This lose-with-Cruz faction figures that a reset of the party after a Cruz defeat would be possible, whereas Trump might not leave them with much of party to reset.

Others who have crawled into bed with Cruz are also after a contested convention, but would use it to crawl out of that bed and into the arms of some Republican Romeo waiting in the wings. Maybe Paul Ryan, though he’s playing Hamlet: to be drafted or not to be drafted? Maybe Mitt Romney, who seems readier to commit.