Texas delegation uniting behind Trump at RNC
CLEVELAND, OH (KTRK) -- The Texas delegation gets a lot of big-name speakers at their daily breakfast meetings in Cleveland.
None are bigger this week than Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. The message on Tuesday from the Wisconsin congressman was about working past the fractures within the party and uniting.
He tried to use the Longhorns and Aggies as an analogy for family disagreements. It didn't work.
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"Boy those rivalries were tough, and the Big 12 was the Big 12, and you guys were at each other's throats. It's rough," said Speaker Ryan.
"But when one of the teams advances to a big bowl game, or a national championship, don't you root for the Aggie if you're a Longhorn? Or, root for the Longhorns -- I mean TCU kicked our butts. You don't? This whole riff is not worth it. My entire premise has been obliterated. Good grief. Well, let me tell you what we do where I come from."
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His point was to stress that division is okay, but when you're family -- you ultimately pull together regardless of your differences.
Unity is a word that comes up more than maybe any other during a political convention for a party split at its seams.
But given that a convention, by its very nature, is intended to motivate the most active party members and to galvanize them toward a common goal in November, the apparent lack of unity is hard to ignore.
"I think they'll get behind the candidate, whoever that candidate is," said Ken Money, a member of the Texas delegation. "If it's Trump I think they will."
If. That's not a word you often hear at a convention anymore.
The nominee has, for decades, been a foregone conclusion. If is what, in part, led to the floor vote yelling match on Monday, and it's what has others calling out those who haven't yet gotten on board.
"I support our nominee," said delegate and Harris County Clerk, Chris Daniel. "I was a big Ted Cruz supporter. I was at one point the chairman for Harris County for the Jeb Bush campaign and what it's all about at this point is party unity."
That's why you find Ray Myers and Dwayne Collins backing Trump even though they worked hard for Ted Cruz's presidential bid. They went to Iowa and fought to win the Texas senator that state's caucus.
Now they want Trump to win.
"I've never seen the country where we needed unity so bad," said Myers. "If we don't come together, we lost. We're here to nominate the president of the United States. "
"I'm on the Trump train now," added Collins. "We've got to win this thing and we're going to try to keep Mr. Trump in line -- conservative -- and I think he's coming around." Still, even they have their questions, drawing this political cartoon in which they inject Trump with truth serum to find out where exactly their nominee is on key issues.
