This is entirely correct, both in its broader point and in the narrower point (which I mentioned earlier) that Colorado’s delegates-only system was not designed to benefit “a guy like Cruz,” as Trump put it. It was designed to benefit establishment candidates who would, the state GOP incorrectly believed, be better funded and better organized than insurgents like Trump and Cruz. It was an attempt to game the system to favor “insider” candidates. But the insider candidates all failed, handing Cruz — and Trump — an opening. Cruz took advantage, Trump didn’t. It’s as simple as that, and even someone like Rush who’s been scrupulously careful not to alienate the Trump fans in his audience won’t describe it any other way.

Now, what happened in Colorado is, I’m sorry to say, it’s not a trick. What happened in Colorado is right out in the open. Everybody’s known how Colorado runs its affairs. Everybody has known. Nobody just chose to look at it. It’s no secret that Colorado was gonna have a convention and they’re gonna choose their delegates before the primary. It’s not a secret. It’s just nobody leaked it. Nobody talked about it. Nobody bragged about it. So it was left to be discovered by people who didn’t know. And it turns out that people on the Trump campaign didn’t know… So I don’t see Ted Cruz lying and cheating his way to the convention. I see a lot of hard work. I see some people who know what they have to do, given where they are. They’re in second place in both the vote count and the delegate count. They’re serious about winning. The Cruz team is serious about winning. They have made themselves fully aware of how the process works, and they’ve been out working it for quite a while. They went into Louisiana where Trump scored a massive win but they’ve come out of there with many more delegates than, by appearances, they should have. Ted Cruz had goals. He worked the problem ’til he got the result he wanted. What he’s demonstrating, folks, he’s demonstrating he knows how to work himself within this insider labyrinth. He knows how to navigate it. He knows how to work it. He knows how to turn it to his advantage. You have to look at this and say, “Okay, what does this tell us about Cruz, if he should become president?“

That’s also correct. Trump will stand at the podium all day long and assure you that he’ll have all the best people as president, he’ll outmaneuver the establishment at every turn, he’ll win, win, win. Then you pick up the paper and find that Team Cruz has pantsed him again, virtually unopposed, in delegate-wrangling by being smarter and much better organized. That’s a clue as to which of the two of them would be a more formidable enemy of bureaucracy and special interests, all of which will have their own lobbying campaigns run by very smart, well organized people. And Trump’s incompetence comes layered on top of an ideological void that could be filled by “insiders” of one party or the other depending on the issue. With Cruz, you know what you’re getting and you know he’ll execute effectively. With Trump, everything from the policy itself to how it’s implemented is a question mark.

The only advantage Trump would have as president over Cruz is his ability to enthrall the media, although even that carries risk as his role evolves from destroyer of the GOP to general-election threat to Hillary Clinton to, if he’s successful in November, head of an executive branch that’ll end up opposing at least *some* Democratic agenda wishlist items. (I think.) Would President Trump get more of a pass from the press than President Cruz? Even if he would, does that remotely offset Cruz’s other advantages? And maybe most importantly, how heavily would President Trump rely on his media crutch to try to compensate for substantive failures? Rush says, accurately, in this clip that Trump was blindsided by the delegate race because he assumed that by dominating the media comprehensively he could turn public interest into votes and votes into enough delegates to claim the nomination. And he was right — almost. He may yet be proved right in the end. But that’s a big bet he’s placed on the media to deliver for him as he’s neglected other crucial aspects of campaigning and it may end up costing him the nomination. Which American interests, foreign or domestic, would he neglect as president expecting that he could spin away any political damage from his neglect with another shiny-object media campaign?

Speaking of which, your exit quotation via Cruz: “By all appearances, Roger Stone now decides what’s on Drudge.” Click the image below to listen to Limbaugh’s audio.