Mike Davis

@byMikeDavis

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - It was the "Too slow!" heard around the world.

Two days before Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, dropped out of the presidential race, he made a campaign stop at the Wagon Wheel Country Market and Deli, a farmer's market near Indiana University.

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Wearing a red, white and blue flannel, one man stood out among the mob of supporters looking for an autograph or a selfie. With an iPhone in his left hand, 21-year-old Kevin Nichols reached in with his right for a handshake.

“Sen. Cruz, can I at least shake your hand?” Nichols screamed over the crowd.

Cruz gave him a sideways glance and immediately stuck his hand out. Before he could reach Nichols, the Howell native pulled his hand back and ran it through his hair.

“Too slow, Joe!” he yelled.

Nichols is the furthest thing from an enthusiastic young Republican, an image he donned to ensure he’d get face time with Cruz. In actuality, Nichols — who graduates from Indiana on Saturday — is a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont, the Democratic hopeful.

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“He just has so many horrible viewpoints on everything, I felt the need to mock him in a way that was childish and unpolitical,” Nichols said in an interview on Wednesday. “He’s so far gone that he doesn’t deserve to be talked to in any kind of reasonable way.”

Since Monday, it has only gotten worse for Cruz. Video of Nichols’ encounter went viral his Facebook and political blogs and was aired on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.”

“Damn, that’s cold. Someone should call State Farm because Ted Cruz just got burned to the (expletive) ground,” Noah said on the Tuesday night broadcast. “It’s time to re-evaluate your presidential prospects when you’re getting ‘too slow’d’ by the citizens.”

And after suspending his campaign following a loss in the Indiana primaries, Cruz had to contend with another viral video. It showed Cruz going in for a group hug and accidentally elbowing his wife, Heidi, in the face.

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Nichols had originally planned to ask Cruz a long-winded, serious question – only to cap it off with “So, what are you prepared to do with the fish monsters here in Indiana, Sen. Cruz?”

But with the large crowd, Nichols had to settle for blurting out, “You look like a fish monster,” harking back to Internet memes claiming the 45-year-old senator resembles a blobfish. For Cruz, it ended up being a coda on a GOP campaign rife with junior-high-level name-calling.

“I just can’t look at his face without seeing that,” Nichols said.

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Mike Davis: (732) 643-4223; mdavis@gannettnj.com