OSCEOLA, Iowa – For a few minutes I wondered if I’d wandered into the wrong barn.
Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, was introducing the candidate I’d come to see, but with descriptions that bore no relation to the candidate I’d come to know.
He called this man “one of the great listeners that I’ve ever been around in my entire life.” He praised him as “a person who is full of humility.”
Then it hit me: Perry was playing defense and asserting the precise virtues that the candidate famously lacks.
Because when most people think of Ted Cruz, they don’t think: listener.