In the nicest way possible, Ted Cruz told Mitt Romney to forget his dream of becoming the GOP nominee by way of a brokered convention.

It really isn’t a secret that Romney wanted to get into this year’s primary race but he decided not to compete. Now that Trump is leading the field and Marco Rubio seems to be on the way out, Romney apparently has it in his head that it is his role to be acclaimed the unity candidate at a brokered convention. Over the weekend, Romney gave his best I’m-not-interested-but-hey-over-here-look-at-me non-refusal refusal on Meet the Press:

Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, refused Sunday to rule out becoming the nominee again this year at a brokered convention, though he insisted he couldn’t imagine that happening.

“I don’t think anyone in our party should say, ‘Oh no, even if the people of the party wanted me to be president, I would say no to it.’ No one is going to say that,” Mr. Romney said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

He was also on Fox News Sunday where he basically denied that there is an Establishment and even if there were such a thing he’s not a part of it.

The subject came up on Face the Nation when the smarmy, unctuous douchenozzle, John Dickerson, asked Ted Cruz about a brokered convention. In the nicest way possible, Ted Cruz told Mitt Romney to forget his dream of becoming the GOP nominee by way of a brokered convention.

TRANSCRIPT

DICKERSON: Let me ask you about your political path. Is it to win the nomination, the delegates, outright or is it just deny, get to Cleveland, and figure it out there?

CRUZ: Look, we’re campaigning to win, and I will say anytime you hear people talking about a brokered convention, I think that is the fevered talk of the Washington Establishment. The Washington Establishment is in a panic, they’re confused, they don’t understand what’s happening. And their favored candidates, the one’s they want to win are not getting the votes. But if a bunch of Washington deal-makers try to step in in a brokered convention and steal the nomination, I think we will have a manifest uprising. If you want to beat Donald Trump, and I don’t think Donald Trump is the right nominee to go up against Hillary Clinton, if you want to beat him, you’ve got to beat him at the ballot box. And our campaign is the only campaign that has demonstrated we can do so over and over.

DICKERSON: You think there’s something illegitimate about trying to have a brokered convention… work it out?

CRUZ: You know, I think if it is a bunch of Washington deal-makers and lobbyists who want to parachute in their preferred candidate, because they don’t like what the voters are doing, I think that is illegitimate and I think it’s wrong…

DICKERSON: [Flashes toothy douchebag grin] Ronald Reagan in 1976 used the convention to try and beat Gerald Ford, so there wasn’t anything inherently bad about that.

CRUZ: But there’s a difference there when that’s coming from the people, when it’s a battle of the people. A lot of the folks pushing a brokered convention in Washington don’t want it to be based on the people. They want to drop in their favorite candidate and try to stifle the will of the people. I think that would be an enormous mistake

This primary has the greatest likelihood of a resulting in a truly contested convention of any in my life (I’m excluding 1976 because that is a different animal entirely compared to the current contest). There is a difference, though, between a contested convention in which candidates vie for delegates after an inconclusive first ballot, and a brokered convention where a non-candidate is put forward as the nominee. There is no reason that a contested convention would result in a brokered convention that results in a guy like Mitt Romney walking away with the nomination. If there is no winner on the first round, the eventual winner needs to be someone who actually participated in the primary and was still running when the convention convenes. Cruz is completely correct. If the Establishment tries to foist one of their own off on us as a candidate, I can’t imagine very many people bothering to show up on election day.