Des Moines, Iowa
The shorthand understanding of the likely three-man race for the Republican nomination goes something like this.
Donald Trump is the populist outside agitator, running on economic nationalism and against the entire political system. Ted Cruz is the antiestablishment crusader, running on sharp intellect, eager confrontation, and ideological purity. And Marco Rubio is the conventional candidate, running on optimism, easing our anxieties, and repairing old divisions.
Cruz and Trump are often lumped together as “outsiders” or “antiestablishment,” manifestations of the anger and frustration of the Republican base. Rubio, by contrast, is usually included in discussions of the “establishment lane” and grouped with John Kasich, Chris Christie, and Jeb Bush.
As with much conventional wisdom, there is some truth in these generalizations. And it’s clear that in some ways the campaigns themselves accept this framing. For six months, Cruz and Trump avoided criticizing each other on the assumption that their campaigns occupied overlapping chunks of the “antiestablishment” political space. When their de facto nonaggression pact ended, they quickly turned to attacking one another with the kind of vigor that candidates reserve for opponents who represent the largest obstacles to their victories. At the same time, most of the incoming fire Rubio has taken has come from the campaigns and super-PACs of the candidates hoping to end up king of the “establishment” mountain.
Rubio looked ready to accomplish that objective when he finished an unexpectedly strong third place in Iowa, winning 23 percent of Republican caucusgoers—within 1 point of Trump and 4 of Cruz. His vote total was more than three times the combined shares of Kasich, Christie, and Bush. Pundits immediately speculated that Rubio, with an expected infusion of cash, was in a position to overtake Trump and Cruz and glide to the Republican nomination. To Rubio detractors, this was cause for alarm.
The most direct warning came from Laura Ingraham, the talk radio host and bestselling author, whose analysis of the presidential race has been very friendly to Trump. Ingraham called for a return to the “strategic alliance” that defined the Cruz-Trump relationship until January. Cruz and Trump “placed first and second in Iowa,” she wrote. “But if they don’t now combine forces and put aside their rancor, they may each find themselves losing the nomination to the third-place finisher, Establishment favorite Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.” Rather than attacking one another, she wrote, Cruz and Trump “should focus on the failures of the Rubio Establishment—like their support for the Trans Pacific Partnership, immigration amnesty and increasing the budget deficit.”
Some of these distinctions are not quite what they seem. Ted Cruz authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed with Paul Ryan in favor of Trade Promotion Authority, before opposing the TPP. Donald Trump expressed conditional support for “amnesty”—his word—as recently as 2013. And Trump opposes reforming entitlements, the driver of our debt crisis, while Rubio, running for Senate in Florida, campaigned on entitlement reform and then voted for budgets that included it.
Anticipating the kinds of presidencies we might expect from these candidates, it seems to me more accurate to look at the GOP nomination race as having three lanes, not two: a nonideological populist lane featuring Trump alone, a traditional Republican lane that includes the governors, and a movement conservative lane with Cruz and Rubio.
Trump is not a conservative. He’s an economic nationalist whose limited involvement in politics over the years has largely consisted of furthering his own interests by contributing to members of both political parties. His current policy positions often contradict those he’s publicly expressed in the past, and his governing philosophy, to the extent he has one, combines crony capitalism with government activism (eminent domain; ethanol; protectionism; universal, government-paid health care).
The governors mix some conservatism with the kind of go-along-get-along pragmatism that has so many GOP primary voters frustrated. Christie advocates broad entitlement reform, but expanded Medicaid in New Jersey; he supported Obama’s nomination of Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor, defended Common Core, and backs Obama’s anti-due-process proposal to ban gun purchases for those on the federal government’s flawed terrorist watch list. Kasich also expanded Medicaid, over the objections of many Ohio Republicans, and he frequently defends his decision by invoking God and suggesting that those who disagree with him are inadequate Christians. He’s mocked elected officials whose decisions are guided by a philosophical commitment to limited government and proclaimed himself a proud pragmatist and an opponent of ideology. Bush, who implemented a series of successful conservative reforms as governor, has grown increasingly critical of the base of his party since leaving office in 2007. He famously suggested he would be a candidate willing to “lose the primary to win the general”—an announcement in advance that he’d risk running as a moderate in the GOP nominating contest to preserve his centrist appeal in a race against the Democratic nominee. All these candidates would fit comfortably on the list of establishment Republican nominees dating back to 1992: George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney.
Rubio and Cruz are different. They are visceral and intellectual conservatives, first elected as explicitly and purposefully antiestablishment candidates. Rubio bucked the Florida party leadership to run for Senate in 2010, eventually defeating incumbent governor Charlie Crist, who was supported by the Washington GOP establishment, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Rubio won the backing of conservative movement groups set up to challenge the GOP establishment—various Tea Party organizations, the Club for Growth, and the Senate Conservatives Fund among them. He ran as an unapologetic conservative, campaigning on entitlement reform at a time the national party was advising candidates to avoid talking about entitlements at all cost.
Ted Cruz traveled a similar path two years later, challenging Texas lieutenant governor David Dewhurst. Like Rubio, Cruz won the backing of the Senate Conservatives Fund, Club for Growth, and Tea Party organizations. And like Rubio, Cruz ran against the establishment of both political parties in Washington.
Has Rubio gone “establishment” during his time in Washington, as his detractors claim? His lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union is 98 out of 100. His current Heritage Action score is 94 percent—the Senate Republican average is 60 percent—with a lifetime score of 91 percent. As Jim Geraghty put it in an exhaustive account of Rubio’s tenure in the Senate: “If Rubio really represents the new GOP ‘establishment,’ then the fight is over and the conservatives won. Despite infuriating many grassroots conservatives by pushing the failed Gang of Eight immigration-reform bill and advocating a path to legalization, Rubio has an indisputably conservative record as a senator.”
Using these ratings as a guide, Cruz is slightly more conservative: 100 percent Heritage Action rating (98 percent lifetime) and 100 percent lifetime American Conservative Union score.
To be sure, Cruz and Rubio are running for president in very different ways—though both are familiar. Rubio is campaigning like Barack Obama did in 2008. He has chosen to emphasize optimism, unity, possibility, reform. He defends his decision to run as a young candidate by emphasizing the “urgency” of the problems facing the country, just as Obama cited Martin Luther King Jr.’s “fierce urgency of now” for his audacious first run for the presidency. There’s a lot of tough criticism of Obama and Washington in Rubio’s stump speech, but there’s also a lot of “hope and change.”
Cruz is running like Obama, too—Obama in 2012. He is campaigning as an unapologetic ideologue, seeking to motivate and energize conservatives unenthusiastic about recent Republican nominees. Cruz’s campaign, like Obama’s reelection effort, is based on the assumption that the contest this fall will be won by the candidate who best turns out the base of his or her party.
These distinct approaches in campaign style have doubtless added to the perception that Rubio is an “establishment” candidate and Cruz is “anti-establishment.” But the real difference between them isn’t whether they would challenge the Republican establishment but how. Rubio’s critique of the establishment is a temporal one, argues Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham. In Rubio’s view, the ideas of the Republican establishment, stale and anachronistic, are badly in need of replacing. So Rubio champions policy innovation and creativity.
Cruz’s critique of the GOP establishment is structural. Republican institutions in Washington have become so badly corrupted that trying to reform them isn’t enough. Needham summarizes the Cruz view this way. “Real policy innovation requires not just putting forth fresh ideas; it requires attacking the flawed nature of the GOP establishment so that innovation can even be possible.”
They’re both right.
There are reasons a conservative voter might prefer Cruz to Rubio. Cruz has demonstrated a willingness to challenge the calcified structures of the establishment and to continue doing so despite scorn heaped on him not only from the New York Times but also from fellow Republicans. It’s a necessary quality for a president who would serve as a disrupter of the broken status quo in Washington. Rubio may have it, and in his advocacy of entitlement reform we’ve seen hints of it. But with Cruz, we know.
There are reasons a conservative voter might prefer Rubio to Cruz. Rubio has a personal appeal—likability—Cruz lacks. When Cruz addresses voters, he’s often self-indulgent and always melodramatic. He speaks as if he’s there to bestow knowledge on the audience, and he’s frequently the hero of his own story. Rubio is nearly the opposite. When he speaks, there’s a genuine sense that he’s in awe of the country and his place in it. His paeans to American greatness seem heartfelt even the twentieth time you’ve heard them. All of this would seem to make him more electable in the general election.
Regardless, if either Cruz or Rubio is sworn in on January 20, 2017, the country will have its most conservative president since Ronald Reagan.
Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
