“Of course, all of us remember President Dole and President McCain and President Romney. Now look, those are good men, they’re decent men. But when you don’t stand and draw a clear distinction, when you don’t stand for principle, Democrats celebrate,” Cruz said.

When asked by moderator Chris Wallace what he thought of those remarks, Paul said dragging people down just isn’t his style.

“Can we do things different to get the party bigger? There’s always ways we can get bigger, particularly when we don’t win. But I don’t spend any time sort of trying to criticize others in the party, because I realize the party has to be bigger, not smaller,” Paul said.

It would be interesting to see if Paul’s nonconfrontational strategy would be effective in a primary setting. If nothing else, it’d certainly be different.