Viewers of Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate could be forgiven if they thought they were watching two separate debates at once, not even counting the undercard. The primetime event was split into a competition between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz on the one hand and Donald Trump versus almost everyone else on the other.
Those are also the dynamics of the GOP race as 2015 comes to a close and the Iowa caucuses beckon. You either believe that Trump’s massive lead is real and as enduring as it has appeared to be since this summer, or you think — perhaps hope — that the reality TV star will yet implode.
If you think Trump is the genuine front-runner, as the billionaire himself clearly does, the strategy of struggling candidates like Jeb Bush or John Kasich makes sense. Either Trump must be taken down by someone presenting himself as the adult in the room or he will be the Republican nominee.
If you think Trump’s lead is more illusory, the product of wall-to-wall media coverage and high name recognition but incapable of withstanding greater scrutiny or even a setback in Iowa, then the Cruz-Rubio contest makes more sense. Note that neither man went after Trump. They only attacked each other.
Cruz and Rubio are both first-term senators who defeated sitting statewide officials in Republican primaries over the objections of the party establishment but with the support of state and national Tea Party groups. They both went on to compile conservative records in the Senate. (This all describes Rand Paul too.)
Rubio, however, has made a certain peace with the establishment, having worked with them (and Democrats) on an immigration bill he now disavows and more or less fully embracing the foreign policy of the previous Republican administration. If Republican consultants and donors could design a candidate in a lab, Rubio would be their creation: telegenic, eloquent, Hispanic, relatively young, from a key swing state.
Thus if Trump stumbles, Rubio has the opportunity to assemble a coalition of mostly conservative but some moderate voters, plus the establishment donors and Rolodex men who once made Bush look so formidable. But first he must rid himself of Cruz.
Cruz’s relationship with the party establishment hasn’t improved since he came to the Senate in 2013. His standing among some conservative journalists and wonks was diminished by that year’s government shutdown, which they never thought very likely to defund Obamacare even though they shared his adamant opposition to the healthcare law.
But Cruz’s relationship with the grassroots conservatives — who comprise the Tea Party as well as the more established Christian right — remains as strong as ever. Cruz is working to expand this base to include the libertarians drawn to Paul and the disaffected populists fueling Trump’s rise.
That means taking positions on foreign policy, civil liberties and immigration that put Cruz even more squarely at odds with Rubio, giving the race an ideological component rather than merely serving as the clash of two ambitious pols.
Uncharacteristically for an insurgent conservative candidate, Cruz has the advantage in fundraising and the polls. He stands a decent chance of winning Iowa, whereas it isn’t clear which early state is Rubio’s best hope for a victory.
Nevertheless, the people Cruz has annoyed since he arrived on the national scene are descending on him, scrutinizing his debate claims for everything from factual errors and misstatements about his or his opponents’ records to isolationism and classified intelligence leaks. Others fear that his strategy for winning the general election — turning out the base like George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election on steroids — is doomed to failure. If he is torn down, Rubio could benefit.
All of this is for naught, however, if Trump is really where the action is. Bush, Chris Christie and company hope that at some point the Republican primary electorate will wake up and realize it needs neither a celebrity nor a squabbling senator, but rather someone with governing or executive experience. But it is the voters’ bad experience with past Republican governance that has created opportunities for Trump, Cruz and Ben Carson.
The Rubio-Cruz contest could decide the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Or it could merely be a sideshow in Trump’s three-ring circus, a race for second and third place.
