Who could he possibly mean?

“Tone matters,” Cruz, the son of a Cuban immigrant, told The Associated Press in an interview between campaign stops. “Are there some in the Republican Party whose rhetoric is unhelpful with regard to immigration? Yes.”

Donald Trump’s call for a database to track Muslims in the U.S. is one example, Cruz says. But he refused to condemn the rhetoric of another Republican who could help him win Iowa’s leadoff caucuses, Rep. Steve King, the influential conservative who has described immigrants living in the country illegally as disease-ridden — and spent the weekend campaigning at Cruz’s side…

“I am the son of an immigrant who came from Cuba with nothing, came here legally,” Cruz said. “And my view, which I think the vast majority of Americans share, is very simple: Legal good. Illegal bad.”…

With King riding in the second vehicle of Cruz’s two-car caravan, Cruz refused to condemn [any of King’s] comments when pressed. He also declined to name any Republicans whose rhetoric on immigration has been “unhelpful.”

Legal immigration good, illegal immigration bad — unless U.S. unemployment “remains unacceptably high,” at which point legal immigration becomes not so good either. That’s Cruz’s new, more Jeff-Sessions-esque view as recently announced in his immigration plan, an obvious way to guard his right flank from Trump and to prove that Marco Rubio’s lying when he says his immigration views aren’t much different from Cruz’s.

But I digress. The fact that Cruz is obliquely needling Trump about his tone sets up an interesting dynamic if he, Rubio, and Trump are the final three. Rubio will run as the immigration centrist; Trump will run as the hardliner who, uh, wants to re-import most illegals legally once they’ve all been deported; and Cruz will run as a hybrid of the two, the guy who goes around pounding the table for more deportations and better border security while drizzling his rhetoric with plenty of honey about the noble aspirations of legal immigrants. That’s a smart play in how it creates an option for voters who distrust Rubio because of the Gang of Eight and distrust Trump because he’s, well, Trump. But it’s risky in that it sets up Cruz to play the scold against Trump on “tone,” which seems to irritate the hell out of Trump’s fans whenever anyone else does it. A core part of his appeal since the day he launched his campaign by talking about rapists from Mexico is that he’s not PC; he’s the guy who’ll tell you, after a protester gets roughed up, that maybe he deserved it. Now Ted Cruz, who’s hoping to inherit Trump’s voters, is going to start tut-tutting him (and them) for their “tone” on immigration? C’mon. If he does it, it’ll only be because he has no choice. If “tone” becomes an issue, undecideds may opt for Rubio over Cruz since Rubio’s position is more of a centrist antidote to that. Cruz may have to wag his finger at Trump a bit just to show those undecideds that he and Trump may have similar positions but they don’t have similar views.

And if that’s not enough, maybe Cruz will moderate some of those positions just a tad. In case you missed it Friday, we finally have an answer (sort of) to what he’d do with the many millions of illegals who are already here:

“First we secure the borders,” Cruz said. “First we demonstrate that we can solve this problem so that the flow of those coming into this country will drop effectively to zero.”…

“If we put in place a strong E-Verify system and deport criminal illegal aliens, the number of people here illegally will drop significantly, particularly if there’s not a continual flow of people coming in illegally,” Cruz said.

“At that point, once we’ve demonstrated that we can solve the problem, then we can have a conversation about what to do about whatever people remain illegally,” Cruz added. When asked if that conversation included the potential for a pathway to legal status, he repeated, “We can have that conversation with the American people once we secure the border.”

Some number will leave either through deportation or self-deportation. (The Obama economy’s done wonders for that.) The millions left over who are still here will either get to stay or — well, let’s face it, they’ll get to stay, the euphemism about “conversation” notwithstanding. This again is Cruz trying to find the sweet spot between Rubio’s “legalize them up front” position and Trump’s “send ’em all home (before letting them back in)” view. He’s going to crack down on illegals and the border. And then, after the crackdown is complete, we’ll see. That’s as clear an example as you’ll ever see of a politician who’s earned mountains of cred with his base spending a little of it in the name of electability. It’s an unspoken bargain: Cruz is going to promise “security first” and in return conservatives aren’t going to hassle him about what comes next, knowing that, if they do, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, or even Hillary Clinton is likely to benefit.

By the way, according to a new YouGov poll of Iowa, Cruz has already passed Carson for second place there and trails Trump by nine points. Steve King’s endorsement had something to do with that, I’m sure. And as long as King is willing to look the other way at Cruz’s “conversation” rhetoric about legalization, so will most other border hawks. When push comes to shove, what other option is there?