Since Monday, Donald Trump has blamed voters, the media and now Sen. Ted Cruz for his loss in the Republican caucus in Iowa.
The voters, he said, never gave him any credit for self-funding his campaign. The media, he added, did not cover his "long-shot great finish" fairly. And on Wednesday, he called the election "a fraud" and said Cruz "cheated" by telling some caucus-goers that retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson was leaving the race for president.
"I think what he did was disgusting," Trump told Greta Van Susteran on Fox News. "That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated," he later tweeted. "Bad."
The billionaire businessman's balloon finally may be popping, or at least leaking air. Though he still has a substantial lead in polling ahead of next week's New Hampshire primary, his lead there has slipped.
And, as also-ran Republicans exit the race, they're endorsing candidates other than Trump or remaining mum.
Since Monday's caucus, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and current Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul have left the campaign trail. Santorum endorsed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who nearly finished second in Iowa. Paul said he wouldn't endorse anyone but would support whoever is nominated in the general election in November.
Trump's latest tirades - Trumper-tantrums, Cruz called them - should convince those on the fence about his seriousness as a candidate. Yes, he has elevated the issue of illegal immigration, Yes, he is tired of seeing the United States pushed around. And yes, he wants to "make America great again."
But platitudes and insults do not a presidency make. Imagine the bombastic businessman being involved in the type of high-level decision-making done by President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis or President Richard Nixon in the strategic opening to China or President Ronald Reagan in the tense treaties with the then-Soviet Union.
"Bad," Trump might say in each situation. "They're bad. Bomb them."
Cruz had it right Wednesday.
"It seems his reaction to everything is to throw a fit," he said. "He losing it."
It's time voters see through the artifice that is Trump. Tennesseans, who can begin voting early starting next Wednesday, especially need to pay attention to what the best alternative might be if they've been considering him. His petty, reactionary, pseudo-Republican image is not what we require in a country so in need of a serious turnaround.