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Spengler: My Prediction: A Cruz-Rubio Ticket
Republican voters think the economy is the number one issue but can't manage a public discussion on economic policy, as I observed Oct. 4 ("Who are you, and what have you done with the Republican Party?"). They flail at hot-button issues, defunding Planned Parenthood, for example, and look for scapegoats such as illegal Mexican immigrants (whose numbers are actually falling). It seems pointless to make predictions of any sort in the midst of the moral equivalent of a riot, but nonetheless I will go out on a limb: the Republicans will nominate Sen. Ted Cruz as president and Sen. Marco Rubio as vice-president, by process of elimination.This conclusion seems inevitable by process of elimination. The voters are in a surly, rebellious mood and display their anger by telling pollsters they will vote for anti-Establishment candidates who never have held office (Trump, Carson, Fiorina, Paul). ...The four anti-Establishment candidates together command 58% of Republican preferences, according to the CBS poll. But it is unlikely that the party ultimately will nominate any of them. They simply are too volatile, too inexperienced and too labile to carry a presidential campaign. If that assumption is correct (and it is a big assumption), then that 58% will have to go somewhere else. We can array the Republican candidates in a Venn diagram, with two regions denoting "experience" (holders of high political office) vs. the rebels. There is one name and one name only in the intersection of the two Venn diagrams, namely Cruz: he is perceived as anti-Establishment, but he has held high office at the state and national level. Cruz is the likeliest person to inherit the 58% anti-Establishment vote once the Trump-Carson-Fiorina euphoria fades. It's noteworthy that Cruz polls strongest among elected officials in the Republican race, at 9% this morning vs. 5% in September. Most of his gain appears to have come at the expense of former Gov. Mike Huckabee, which suggests that conservative evangelicals are consolidating their efforts around Sen. Cruz. The Republicans need a candidate with anti-Establishment credentials. A Jeb Bush ticket would risk defections to third-party challengers. Cruz, moreover, has the strongest organization on the ground among all the Republican candidates. CBS news reported last week that he raised $12.2 million in the third quarter, more than twice the $6 million raised by Sen. Marco Rubio. Ben Carson, to be sure, raised about $20 million, but Carson simply will not be the candidate. The average Cruz donation was just $66, and the Texas senator has a strong grassroots organization, perhaps the strongest of any of the Republican candidates. Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2015-10-14 |
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