Trump’s main opponents in the future may be two
Rising Sons of the Sun Belt, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, 44-year-old
Cuban Americans who are serving freshman terms in the Senate.
At least on paper, the smooth and telegenic
Rubio possesses all the elements needed to put together a winning
coalition for the nomination, and possibly the general election. No one
knows whether that will remain true after he goes through the fire of
withering attacks from Republican and Democratic opponents. Conservative
enough for most GOP factions (though not all -- the anti-immigration
wing is suspicious), Rubio has become the private favorite of many
establishment officeholders who realize he may be the only contender who
can get the party back to control of the presidency. Rubio’s potential
is great, and he has steadily moved forward in polls and funding, but he
has yet to achieve critical mass. He’s in need of one or more electoral
breakthroughs in February that can transform his potential into
reality.
Meanwhile, Rubio’s Senate colleague, Ted Cruz,
has positioned himself nicely for a surprise victory over Donald Trump
in the lead-off contest in Iowa on Feb. 1. If it’s a clear, clean win,
Cruz will get a rocket boost and the kind of blanket media coverage that
has eluded him so far. At the very least, Cruz should finish strongly
enough to catapult him into other primaries and caucuses, especially in
the South.
We add two cautions here. First, the month of
January will see lots of gambits by all the candidates, and there’s more
than enough time for this playbook to be upset and for the polls to move.
Second, Cruz’s turn at bat will occasion intense media scrutiny of his
weaknesses, including unpopularity that stretches almost across the
board among his colleagues in the Senate (though in the age of Trump,
that may help Cruz). It’s going to be fascinating to see if and how the
electability standard is applied to Cruz. He insists that millions of
conservative whites who abstained from voting in 2008 and 2012 will come
out to vote for him in November, transforming the Electoral College
picture. Yet a large majority of the GOP strategists we’ve consulted
reject that theory, believing Cruz to be so conservative that he’ll be
restricted to the deeply Republican states that together possess not
even 200 electoral votes.
The most striking reversal of fortune in recent
weeks has been the decline of Ben Carson. Many have pointed to his
demonstrable lack of knowledge about foreign policy, which has been
emphasized in the wake of the horrible ISIS-directed or ISIS-inspired
terrorist killings in Paris and San Bernardino. However, Carson’s fall
in the polls may have as much to do with style. Republicans now want
toughness and decisiveness, and a policy not tempered by any mercy for a
merciless foe. Trump has no more international knowledge and experience
than Carson. Yet while Carson is soft-spoken and uncertain in this
area, Trump is blunt, if characteristically simplistic: just find the
Islamic extremists and kill them.
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