The exchange between Senator Ted Cruz and Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” last Sunday was possibly the most powerful and revealing of this whole presidential campaign.

Cruz asked the crucial and telling question: “Why was there no Republican debate in Indiana?” Todd had no response other than defend his bosses at NBC.

After the long slog of this campaign, after 12 debates, we arrived to a critical and potentially decisive moment in Indiana, with perhaps the highest stakes yet. And where is the media? Out to lunch.

American voters must be informed and they are being left in the dark.

Indiana was the place for the voting public to have a chance to see one-on-one, Trump vs. Cruz. Why were Indiana voters, and the whole country, given no opportunity to see the two leading Republican candidates face off and confront each other on the big issues, particularly at a critically decisive moment in this campaign?

The New York media exploded on Cruz during the primary there because of Cruz’s remark that Trump is about “New York values.” One screaming headline in the Daily News hurled an expletive at Cruz.

But was the reasonableness about Cruz’s claim about “New York values” vetted by the media? Of course not.

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University rates the 50 states of the union according to freedom — personal and economic. Finishing dead last, 50 out of 50, as the least free state in the USA is New York — home to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Texas, the home state of Senator Cruz, is ranked 14 out of 50.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from the beginning of the economic recovery in 2009 through 2015, job growth in Texas was 15.12 percent compared to 8.29 percent in New York. The number of jobs created in Texas over this period, 1,543,000, was twice that of New York, 703,500.

Forbes Magazine projects that Texas will be the number one job creating state in the nation over the next five years, creating 10.6 million jobs.

This is serious business at a time when economic growth must be of central concern to the nation.

Economist John Cochrane of the Hoover Institution says, “Sclerotic growth is America’s overriding economic problem.”

Now we have two Republican candidates — one, businessman Trump, from the least free and one of the most economically underperforming states in the nation, and Senator Cruz, from one of the most free and the nation’s number one job creating state, and voters have gotten zero opportunity to hear them debate one-on-one.

Can it be an accident that Club for Growth PAC endorses Ted Cruz, calling him “the best free market, pro-growth, limited government candidate in the presidential race”?

Or that Ronald Reagan economic advisor Art Laffer praised Ted Cruz’s tax plan, saying, “If you look at his tax plan, it makes Reagan’s tax plan look weak in the 1980s.”

I am with those who say that even now, this presidential race remains to be decided.

The real crisis in America is a crisis of character, of leadership.

Over Ted Cruz’s years in the Senate, he has taken many courageous stands alone. There have been some cynical voices that have seen this as a personally ambitious young politician looking for attention.

Another take is that Ted Cruz is a hero, really loves and believes in America, really understands this is about freedom and God, and is willing to put it all on the line. And, in fact, it says something about Cruz’s ability that not only has he survived but is now a serious presidential contender.

Frankly, I cannot imagine Donald Trump having the courage to stand alone as Ted Cruz has.

We can’t have yet another bad Republican candidate for president. America needs Ted Cruz and there are too many who see this to give up the ship.

COPYRIGHT 2016 STAR PARKER
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