Yet Cruz’s own observation — that Washington types love a winner — makes Cruz’s lack of support from his colleagues especially damning. Politicians frequently endorse people they barely know for purely political purposes. That the men and women who have worked most closely with him have universally refused to jump on board — even after his remarkable performance over the last two weeks — suggests that Cruz’s colleagues’ concerns about him go beyond his prickly personality. They must not respect him.

Cruz and the media are busy urging every candidate to clear the way for Cruz to go one on one with Trump. If Rubio and Kasich lose their home states next Tuesday, they will not have a choice — they’ll have to drop out.

Before voters in each of these states decide to “choose” Cruz, though, they should ask themselves whether a man whose only accomplishment in Washington is fostering in both his ideological friends and foes a mutual contempt for him as a person can succeed in an office that requires its holder to persuade those very persons to follow him.

After all, a leader with no followers is just a person taking a walk.