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 Ted Cruz's latest play to keep his presidential bid alive has Donald Trump shaking his head. 
 
 Fresh off his first traditional policy speech, Trump was back in classic form on the stump in Indiana, making fun of Cruz for tapping Carly Fiorina as his vice president. 
 
 "So today I'm in the plane, and I see on television, they have, a new relationship has started: Cruz and Carly," Trump began, regaling an excited crowd with the latest story in the news cycle. 'Cruz can't win. What's he doing picking vice presidents?" 
 
 Then he alerted the crowd to a new record: Cruz is the "first presidential candidate in the history of this country who's mathematically eliminated from being president who chose a vice presidential candidate. Okay? It's a record." 
 
 Related: Donald Trump Doubles Down on Clinton's 'Woman Card' 
 
 But Trump quelled the crowds concerns by assuring them that despite wishing Cruz well, "They're not gonna do it for you." 
 
 On this same evening, Trump received the endorsement of legendary basketball coach Bobby Knight - but that wasn't the only endorsement he was touting. "All the tough guys endorsed me," Trump said, noting that he's also been endorsed by ex-boxer Mike Tyson. "I like that." ||||| Ted Cruz talks a lot about conservative leadership but there was nothing conservative about his desperate gambit naming Carly Fiorina as his running mate less than 24 hours after he was mathematically eliminated from winning enough delegates for the Republican nomination. 
 
 Trailing Donald Trump by more than 400 delegates after suffering a string of defeats in the Northeast in which he failed to crack 25 percent anywhere, Cruz reached for the biggest tool available to a flagging presidential candidate: naming a vice president. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 In tapping Fiorina, the Cruz campaign hopes to shake up a hardening political narrative of Trump’s inevitability, to stem the bleeding after six straight losses, and to lift his fortunes in the coming key contests of Indiana, where the surprise announcement was held, and California, where Fiorina first planted her political roots. 
 
 It was a bid for a game changing moment — and a not-so-tacit acknowledgment that, unless something significant in the current nominating game changed, Cruz was headed for defeat. 
 
 “The current message is ‘Trump sucks,’ and ‘the campaign has a great strategy for attracting delegates,’” said one Cruz source. “That’s not a message, that’s a process. I see this as a means to stir things up and get us back to Cruz’s narrative of shaking up Washington. If she helps get us there, I’m all for it.” 
 
 One person familiar with the decision said the Cruz campaign had deliberated for the past two weeks whether to pick Fiorina, including polling the potential ticket, examining it for prospective strengths and weaknesses. 
 
 The campaign began laying the groundwork to spring the surprise in recent days. First came the leak that Fiorina was being vetted. Then came the public acknowledgment from Cruz’s campaign manager, and then Cruz himself, that they had narrowed the possibilities to a “short list.” Cruz got ahead of the campaign earlier this month when he said at a CNN town hall that his team was already assessing options. 
 
 “After a great deal of consideration and prayer, I have come to the conclusion that if I am nominated to be president of the United States, I will run on a ticket with my vice presidential nominee, Carly Fiorina," Cruz declared in Indianapolis at an event carried live by all the cable networks. 
 
 It was a surreal scene, as Cruz announced his pick with all the pomp and circumstance of a presidential nominee, even as the contest threatened to slip from his grasp. He delivered a stemwinder of a speech before Fiorina took the microphone, praised Cruz as a father, and sang aloud to his daughters. 
 
 The blatant grab for television attention and push to jolt the political system had echoes Marco Rubio’s ill-fated decision to attack Trump in sharply personal terms ahead of Super Tuesday. Rubio, as Cruz did Wednesday, succeeded in drawing attention. But he did not win any support, and was out of the race within weeks. 
 
 On Wednesday, Cruz hailed Fiorina as a woman of “extraordinary intelligence” and solid conservative principles. “She respects the Constitution and Bill of Rights,” he praised. 
 
 It is highly unusual for a candidate who is trailing to name a running mate. Indeed, Bernie Sanders is closer to Hillary Clinton’s delegate haul than Cruz is to Trump. As of Wednesday, Trump had amassed 954 of the 1,237 delegates he needs for the nomination. Cruz had a mere 562. 
 
 And coming after lopsided losses and ahead of must-win Indiana, some said the Cruz maneuver had more than a whiff of desperation. 
 
 “Ideally, a VP announcement is one of those rare moments that gives you near total control of several news cycles, so it has to be planned with maximum impact in mind,” said Kevin Madden, a veteran Republican strategist and former adviser to Mitt Romney. “This looks reactionary instead of a rollout that's tactical.” 
 
 Trump slammed the move even before it was official, saying Cruz was “wasting his time” because he would never be the nominee. 
 
 “Carly is not going to do the trick," Trump said on ABC's “Good Morning America,” adding, "I like Carly. Nice person but she never resonated. She didn't do well. She went — she was very low in the polls and by the end she was an insignificant player.” 
 
 Democrats piled on, too. 
 
 “I would define that ticket to the American people in this way: mean and meaner,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, an outspoken liberal Democrat who beat Fiorina in her 2010 reelection campaign and has clashed with Cruz in the Senate. 
 
 The pick is likely to please a crucial constituency of one: Robert Mercer, who has been one of the most generous benefactors of Cruz’s super PAC, giving it $11 million. Mercer is also a Fiorina fan, sending $500,000 to a super PAC that backed her own presidential run. 
 
 If Cruz is to be competitive in California, his campaign and super PAC are likely to need an infusion of millions of additional dollars for ads and mail in the sprawling state ahead of the June 7 primary. 
 
 Cruz and Fiorina began the 2016 campaign with little prior relationship but warmed to one another over time. “Born in Texas,” Cruz said in his speech, “the very first thing I liked about her.” 
 
 In early February, Fiorina took notice when Cruz was among the most outspoken of her rivals in demanding that she be included in the New Hampshire prime-time debate, when ABC News’ criteria threatened to exclude her. 
 
 She and Cruz spoke again during the Conservative Political Action Conference's gathering in March, and she delivered her full-throated endorsement of him in Miami, shortly before the Florida primary. 
 
 “Isn’t Carly extraordinary?” Cruz gushed a few days later, on March 15, after Fiorina had barnstormed several states with him. “Such a tremendous leader. And I’ve got to tell you, she terrifies Hillary Clinton. Hillary tosses and turns in her jail cell thinking about her.” 
 
 One of Cruz’s friends, who has spoken with the candidate about the process of selecting a running mate, said in an interview last month that Cruz wanted a committed conservative with “real grassroots appeal” and someone willing to push his agenda “even if it’s hard.” But Cruz also spoke about the need for gender balance on a ticket going up against Clinton. 
 
 “Then of course, we talked in the abstract that there would be a lot of pressure, given Hillary Clinton being at the top of the ticket, on the other side there would be a lot of pressure to go with a female vice president,” this person said. 
 
 For now, though, Fiorina is a partner in taking down Trump. She wowed Cruz and Republicans nationwide last September when, at a GOP debate, she took Trump to task for mocking her looks. “I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said,” she said coolly. 
 
 Cruz cited the exchange — “the grace, the class, the élan” of Fiorina — as he picked her. 
 
 Mica Mosbacher, a co-chair of Women for Cruz and a fundraiser for him, said Fiorina could help Cruz with women and in California. “For those who do not like Trump, [Fiorina’s] fierce, not-intimidated style has garnered respect among educated working women and moms,” Mosbacher said in an email. “She lost to Barbara Boxer in California because of a liberal-leaning constituency, she still had a very strong showing among Republican voters.” 
 
 Picking a running mate is among the most personal choices a candidate can make, and the Cruz-Fiorina relationship began to blossom, people close to them have said, in Wisconsin. There, they crisscrossed the state along with Heidi Cruz and the Cruz daughters, with whom she has bonded, regularly exchanging texts with Cruz’s eldest, Caroline. 
 
 In his speech, Cruz said Fiorina would even sing to his girls, making up lyrics along the way. 
 
 Fiorina appeared for him at a Women for Cruz event, hoping to drive a wedge between Trump and female voters. And Fiorina has impressed the hardworking Cruz with her loyal and tireless work as a surrogate, going wherever his team has asked virtually without question, from Fargo, North Dakota to Ballwin, Missouri. 
 
 They make a potentially potent pair in the 24-hour media era. While Cruz is a night owl, Fiorina is an early-morning riser, meaning he can tape prime-time shows and she can wake up early for the morning gabfests. 
 
 Fiorina also gives Cruz a political partner with some experience, albeit losing experience, in a state that he’s taken to calling “the big enchilada,” whose 172 delegates will ultimately decide whether Trump can seal the nomination. This weekend, Fiorina is scheduled to give the keynote address at the California Republican Party convention, speaking hours after Cruz takes the stage. 
 
 But Cruz is hardly inheriting a political machine in California. The Senate race was Fiorina’s lone previous bid for public office and after her loss to Boxer she moved to Virginia, leaving little political operation behind. 
 
 “It’s not like tapping into an established California Republican political official who had years to build a political grass-roots organization,” said Beth Miller, a California Republican strategist who worked for Fiorina in 2010. 
 
 The Cruz team hopes Fiorina helps him far sooner than that. Some in the campaign fear the Texas senator will lose Indiana on Tuesday and many other states in May, including Nebraska, where he’s long been assumed to be a favorite. But Cruz hopes that with Fiorina by his side, he is girding for a contested convention. 
 
 “I’m not getting to 1,237 delegates,” he declared in Indianapolis, “and Donald J. Trump is not getting to 1,237 delegates.” 
 
 Lauren Gardner contributed to this report. ||||| Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan and his running mate Senator Richard Schweiker in Kansas City, Mo., in 1976. 
 
 Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz announced Carly Fiorina announced Wednesday afternoon that Carly Fiorina will be his running mate if he wins the nomination. 
 
 The move, which amounts to the grandest diversionary ploy a candidate can stage, was also reminiscent of someone whom Cruz reveres: Ronald Reagan. 
 
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 In his 1976 primary against President Gerald Ford, Reagan — lagging and needing to change the subject — announced his choice of a running mate before the Republican convention. 
 
 The gamble paid off in the short term. His selection of Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania led the evening news, slowed the media’s rush to declare Ford the presumptive nominee, and allowed Reagan to continue wooing delegates. 
 
 But Reagan’s announcement came after the primaries had ended, not with 10 states remaining, and he was closer behind Ford in the delegate count than Cruz is today to Trump. Schweiker carried the promise of winning over a clear constituency, the Pennsylvania delegation, while it is unclear which voters Fiorina could deliver. 
 
 And Reagan still lost to Ford, who ultimately lost in the general election to Democrat Jimmy Carter. 
 
 In the 40 years since the Reagan-Ford campaign, no candidate has named a running mate before earning the party’s nomination. 
 
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 Analysts in early 2008 also hypothesized that such a move might have helped Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in their primary that year. ||||| Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz announced that Carly Fiorina will be his vice presidential running mate if he is the GOP nominee for president. Here are four reasons she makes sense for that role. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) 
 
 Ted Cruz named Carly Fiorina as his vice presidential pick in the event he becomes the GOP nominee at a campaign event in Indianapolis on Wednesday. 
 
 So, why is Cruz picking Fiorina? And why is he announcing it now? 
 
 The second question is easier to answer. Cruz and his team understand that after the primary votes over the past two weeks, any momentum he might have had following Wisconsin on April 5 is now gone. And all of it has gone to Donald Trump who now looks damn-near unstoppable in his quest to become the GOP's nominee. 
 
 Given that reality, Cruz needs to change the narrative of the race. Immediately. There are five and a half days until the Indiana primary and if Cruz loses to Trump there the nomination fight will be effectively over. And if nothing changes in the race in the Hoosier State, Cruz will lose. 
 
 Announcing Fiorina is a big swing at story-changing. Cruz has to hope that the coverage over the next few days — both in Indiana and nationally — will focus on Fiorina and why it was smart of him to pick her. Every second that cable TV and local media outlets spend talking about Cruz and Carly is a second that Trump doesn't dominate the conversation. And what recent history has told us is that when Trump dominates the conversation, he almost always wins. 
 
 This is rightly understood as a desperate attempt to re-take the momentum in the race before it's too late. To Cruz's credit, he's trying it. (I'm a big believer in leaving it all out on the field. If you are going to lose, lose with all of your best plays called. Or something.) 
 
 
 
 Ted Cruz shakes hands with Carly Fiorina (Carlo Allegri/Reuters) 
 
 Now to the first question: Why Fiorina? 
 
 Let's take as a given that since Fiorina's campaign ended and she endorsed Cruz on March 9, the two have found out that they have a genuine rapport and share a vision for the country. And let's also assume that Fiorina has passed some sort of basic (or more-than-basic) vet by the Cruz campaign. (Remember that Fiorina not only ran for president in 2016 but also ran for Senate in 2010.) 
 
 What else does she bring Cruz? In order of importance: 
 
 * A woman. Trump's numbers among female voters — especially in a general election — are disastrous. Cruz has struggled to drive that message home in the primary but is clearly hoping that by elevating Fiorina to I'll-pick-her-if-I-can-pick-anyone status that Fiorina can help reach female voters who the Texas senator needs, not just in Indiana but going forward in the race. 
 
 * A Californian. Fiorina is a known commodity in California Republican circles due in large part to her 2010 Senate campaign which, although she lost, got better post-campaign reviews than the gubernatorial effort run by fellow wealthy businesswoman Meg Whitman. Cruz is banking on Fiorina as an able surrogate for him in California — both in front of the camera and behind the scenes — in advance of the state's June 7 primary. By that point, Trump should be nearing the 1,237 delegates he needs to be the nominee, and depriving him of a handful here and there in California congressional districts may be Cruz's only option. He believes Fiorina can help that cause. 
 
 * An attack dog. This works on a near-term and long-term basis. In the near term, Cruz now has an attack dog who has proven to be relatively effective in battling Trump. Fiorina's reputation on that front is largely built on a single exchange during a CNN-sponsored debate in September 2015 in which she appeared to get the better of the real estate mogul who has made comments about her face. (Yes, really.) 
 
 Long term — meaning if Cruz is the nominee — Fiorina is a potentially potent weapon to attack Hillary Clinton. In fact, during her own presidential campaign, Fiorina was, by far, the most willing to hit Clinton on personal matters — an approach she would likely continue if/when she was formally the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee. And, as a woman, Cruz likely believes Fiorina would have more leeway and be more effective in those attacks. 
 
 None of it is unreasonable. And if Cruz is going to pick a VP this far in advance of the party convention — and with so little certainty that he will ever actually be in a position to pick a second in command — he could do worse than Fiorina. 
 
 But make no mistake: This is a Hail Mary pass. It, like the deal that Cruz and John Kasich cut earlier this week, amounts to a tacit acknowledgment that if nothing changes in the race Trump is going to win. 
 
 Could it work? Sure. Sometimes Hail Marys get caught. But usually they get knocked down and the other team starts celebrating. ||||| Indianapolis – Call it a Hail Mary, or a Hail Carly. With no chance of winning the Republican nomination before the convention in Cleveland and with the odds of a contested convention growing dimmer, Ted Cruz announced Carly Fiorina as his potential running mate Wednesday afternoon. 
 
 The Texas senator acknowledged the rarity of announcing a running mate before securing the nomination, but said, “I think all would acknowledge this race, if anything, is unusual.” 
 
 Cruz has long admired Fiorina, who endorsed his candidacy seven weeks ago. Facing political extinction if he loses Indiana’s primary on Tuesday, Cruz made their alliance more official. On stage at the Pan Am Convention Center here in Indianapolis, Cruz said he felt the announcement was necessary to help unite a fractured party. He praised Fiorina as a careful, measured, and serious leader, somebody who “doesn’t get overly excited” or “rattled by whatever is getting thrown at her.” He made the contrast to Donald Trump’s candidacy obvious. His criteria for picking a nominee, he said, included whether somebody thinks through decisions “in a rash and impulsive way.” 
 
 “Do they pop off the handle at whatever strikes them at any given moment?” he asked. 
 
 Fiorina, he made clear, does not. But whatever her impressive personal qualities, the reality is that the announcement was for Cruz a desperately needed opportunity to shake up the race and an attempt to infuse a jolt of energy and excitement into a flagging candidacy. After Donald Trump trounced him in five northeastern primaries Tuesday, claiming 109 of the 128 bound delegates at stake — and with his victories coming on the heels of a dominant showing in the New York primary a week ago — even Cruz’s supporters were beginning to write his obituary. 
 
 RELATED: What Fiorina Brings to Cruz’s Ticket 
 
 They feared Trump’s romp would affect voters in subsequent contests, particularly in make-or-break Indiana and California. “People are kidding themselves if they think Tuesday night’s results won’t have an effect on voters in Indiana and elsewhere,” says David Bahnsen, a Newport Beach-based investment manager who is fundraising for Cruz in California. 
 
 Enter Fiorina, who offered Cruz a much-needed opportunity to frame the contest on his own terms, with hundreds of television cameras pointed in his direction. He worked to dispel the aura of inevitability beginning to form around Trump: While the elites “are all trying to tell the American people this race is over,” he said, the reality is that “nobody is getting to 1,237 delegates. I’m not getting to 1,237 delegates and Donald J. Trump is not getting to 1,237 delegates.” And he emphasized the special role Indiana voters will play in deciding the outcome of the intra-party brawl. “The Hoosier State is going to have a powerful voice” in deciding the outcome of the race. 
 
 Enter Fiorina, who offered Cruz a much-need opportunity to frame the contest on his own terms. 
 
 Six days out from the primary, Cruz’s political life rests on a knife’s edge. In her remarks, Fiorina argued that “character is revealed over time and under pressure” — that struggles don’t build character, but offer a window into it. Though she was referring to past trials, it also seemed as if she could have been talking about the present day. Donald Trump, she said, “doesn’t represent me and he does not represent my party.” She acknowledged the fight to deprive him of the nomination will be tough, but said, “I’ve had tough fights all my life. Tough fights don’t worry me a bit.” 
 
 The road ahead will certainly be rocky. With Trump fewer than 300 delegates away from clinching the nomination, Cruz and Fiorina need wins not only in Indiana, where polls show Trump with a six-point lead ahead of Tuesday’s primary, but also in California’s June 7 primary. 
 
 Tactically speaking, Cruz’s decision to team with Fiorina at this juncture has as much to do with competing there as it does with winning in Indiana. Fiorina, who was the 2010 Republican senatorial nominee in California, is uniquely equipped among Cruz’s vice-presidential options to campaign around the clock in the state over the next six weeks. Having a running mate allows a presidential ticket to be in two places at once — Fiorina will hit the campaign trail in California on Friday. Though she lacks a deep network in the state, she is a known commodity in the business community as well as among grassroots conservatives. 
 
 RELATED: The Fiorina Pick 
 
 There were hints over the past six weeks that the pick was likely. Following Fiorina’s surprise endorsement of Cruz in the run-up to Florida’s March 15 primary, she quickly established herself as the campaign’s star surrogate, relentlessly assailing Trump, vouching for Cruz’s credibility as an anti-establishment outsider, and shielding him from perceived media hostility. 
 
 It soon became apparent to Cruz’s allies that Fiorina — more than Rick Perry, Steve King, or any other high-profile politician — was proving to be Cruz’s most effective sidekick. She complemented his talents (stage presence) and covered his weaknesses (retail politicking). Most important, Cruz, who has few close relationships, seemed to have genuine chemistry with her. 
 
 From their first days together on the campaign trail, he forged a bond with his former rival. Cruz’s wife, Heidi, also hit it off with her. And at a “Women for Cruz” event in Madison, Wis., in late March, Fiorina held hands with Cruz’s young daughters as they walked on stage; held the arm of Cruz’s elderly mother as she exited; and chatted with Heidi Cruz throughout the event. On stage Wednesday, Fiorina broke into song briefly, chanting a tune for Cruz’s daughters. 
 
 RELATED: Why Cruz Is Going All-In on Indiana 
 
 It soon became apparent that Cruz was auditioning Fiorina for a bigger role. At some events she was spending nearly as much time on stage as the candidate himself — and she sometimes earned more enthusiastic applause. Cruz’s team felt so confident in her performances that they began devising a schedule for Fiorina to campaign independently on their behalf, sometimes alongside Heidi. 
 
 Cruz himself had long been impressed by Fiorina, and had been keeping tabs on her for almost a year. 
 
 ‘She’s very impressive, isn’t she?’ Cruz said. ‘Very impressive.’ 
 
 At a May 2015 meeting of the Council for National Policy, a shadowy umbrella organization that brings together conservative-activist leaders, they were two of the six presidential hopefuls scheduled to speak on the same day. It was an audition to win the support of influential movement figures in the room, and each Republican had allies working the room and monitoring other teams’ activities. According to a source present backstage, Cruz was being briefed on other candidates’ speeches — including Fiorina’s — when he interrupted. “She’s very impressive, isn’t she?” Cruz said. “Very impressive.” 
 
 The two had many common allies in the room that day — Cruz by virtue of his connections to the grassroots community, Fiorina thanks to her position chairing the American Conservative Union’s foundation board. Their overlapping circles helped to facilitate a critical one-on-one meeting nearly a year later, in March 2016, at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, D.C. In a suite at the Gaylord National Resort, they clicked instantly. It didn’t hurt that Fiorina revealed she had voted for Cruz in the Virginia primary days earlier. 
 
 RELATED: Mike Pence’s Time for Choosing in Indiana 
 
 On Wednesday in Indianapolis, Cruz recalled that conversation. “When Carly initially endorsed, before that announcement, she and I sat down and talked at great length,” he told the crowd in Indianapolis. “One of the things that struck me in that conversation, is she said, ‘I have a condition for endorsing.’ And I sat back and said, ‘All right, what is that?’ And she said ‘When I do things, I don’t do things half way.’” Fiorina, he said, wanted to be allowed to put her heart into the campaign. Cruz gave her the green light. 
 
 Shortly after that meeting, both camps were informed that her endorsement was imminent. It came the following week at a joint appearance in Miami in which Fiorina hailed Cruz as a “reformer” who has made enemies by taking on “the status quo.” For the next six weeks Fiorina was on call to campaign with Cruz at moment’s notice. “Since that time I have seen her day in, day out, on the campaign bus going from stop to stop to stop: that she is careful, she is measured, she is serious,” Cruz said Wednesday. 
 
 Although her talents on the campaign trail were obvious, and she was included on a preliminary short list of choices for Cruz’s running mate, she set herself apart in a moment of crisis. When the National Enquirer tabloid reported on March 25 that Cruz had carried on extramarital affairs with five women, the campaign’s response was swift and aggressive — yet somehow lacking in outrage. It wasn’t until three days later, amidst an increasingly nasty back-and-forth between the Cruz and Trump campaigns that Cruz’s team offered a forceful response. And it came from Fiorina. 
 
 As Cruz took questions on a Monday evening in Wisconsin eight days ahead of the state’s April 5 primary, a Daily Mail reporter began badgering Cruz about the Enquirer report. Before he could respond, Fiorina interceded. “This is an example of the media playing to Donald Trump’s tune. Donald Trump is a serial philanderer, by his own admission,” she said. “And in a week when we have had a terrorist attack in Brussels, a shooting at the Capitol, the president of the U.S. in the baseball stands with Raul Castro, and insisting he be photographed in front of a picture of Che Guevara with the two Castro brothers, we are talking about a scurrilous, ridiculous piece in the National Enquirer?” 
 
 The incident prompted a revelation inside the Cruz campaign and provided confirmation to Cruz himself of Fiorina’s capabilities, both as a loyal lieutenant and as an attack dog against Trump and any other opponents he might encounter. Indeed, the next morning at a rally in suburban Milwaukee — after Fiorina’s introductory speech was repeatedly interrupted with shouts of “Carly for VP!” — Cruz took the stage and made a revealing remark. “That woman,” he said, nodding toward Fiorina, “gives Hillary Clinton nightmares.” He said precisely the same thing on stage in Indianapolis Wednesday as he brought the announcement event to a close. 
 
 But facing off against Hillary Clinton means going through Donald Trump first — something Fiorina understands. Back in Wisconsin, during a lunch stop at a Milwaukee burger joint in the critical days before the Badger State primary, Cruz and Fiorina waited patiently for a takeout order after greeting guests. Pressed by National Review about whether he had begun to evaluate possible ticket-mates, Fiorina, for the second time in as many days, interjected on his behalf. “Maybe we ought to get him the nomination first,” she said with a protective glare. 
 
 — Eliana Johnson is National Review’s Washington editor. Tim Alberta is the chief political correspondent for National Review.
– In yet another unusual twist in an unusual campaign season, Ted Cruz named Carly Fiorina as his running mate on Wednesday, making him the first candidate from either party to name a veep pick before the convention since Ronald Reagan in 1976. But while Reagan's naming of Sen. Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania slowed down Gerald Ford's momentum, Reagan still ended up losing the nomination, notes the Boston Globe, which calls the tactic the "grandest diversionary ploy a candidate can stage." And unlike Cruz, Reagan waited until after the primaries to name his choice. A roundup of reactions: Politico calls the attention-grabbing move a "desperate gambit" from a candidate who had been mathematically eliminated from winning enough delegates for the nomination less than 24 hours earlier. Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post also considers the move a "desperate attempt to retake the momentum in the race before it's too late," but he credits Cruz for trying it. With the choice of Fiorina, Cruz has brought a woman, a Californian, and a relatively effective "attack dog" on board, Cillizza notes. The National Review calls the ploy "an attempt to infuse a jolt of energy and excitement into a flagging candidacy," but it notes that Cruz appears to have "genuine chemistry" with Fiorina, who will hit the campaign trail in California on Friday. The choice of Fiorina could "present a perilous challenge" for Donald Trump, according to the New York Times, which notes Trump has come under fire for derogatory comments about women and that another "slashing remark" about Fiorina's appearance "could have grave consequences" for him. Trump, however, says Cruz is wasting his time, NBC News reports. "Cruz can't win. What's he doing picking vice presidents?" he told supporters at a rally in Indiana after Cruz's announcement. Cruz is "the first presidential candidate in the history of this country who's mathematically eliminated from being president who chose a vice presidential candidate," Trump added. "OK? It's a record." (Trump's "America first" foreign policy speech is being called "incoherent" and "rambling.")