Rubio making a fatal mistake if he doesn’t attack Trump

Throughout the campaign, Rubio has tried to avoid confrontation with Trump. Perhaps there was some logic months ago, when there was still some hope that Trump was a passing fad who would fade by the time people started actually voting.

That fantasy never became reality. Now Trump has won three straight primaries and is on the verge of putting the nomination out of reach for anybody else with a sweep or near sweep of Super Tuesday. If Rubio actually wants to win the nomination, it’s time for him to show that he’s willing and able to take on Trump.

Yet Politico reports:

Rubio has yet to aggressively engage Trump — and those briefed on his strategy say he’s unlikely to do so on Thursday night.

The Florida senator has concluded that going after Trump would accomplish little because the businessman’s supporters are deeply committed and unlikely to swing Rubio’s way. Inciting a confrontation with Trump onstage would create drama but wouldn’t help the senator gain voters, something he badly needs as he looks for his first primary win.

Instead, Rubio’s team has decided his best bet is to focus fire on Cruz. They think the Texas senator’s voters are less locked in and could swing Rubio’s way should Cruz fade. The only way to dislodge Trump, Rubio’s advisers say, is to turn it into a two-man race — meaning that they first need to get Cruz out of the way.

Unless this is part of some elaborate PysOps plan, this is a major miscalculation by Team Rubio. Here’s the thing — the essence of the Ted Cruz vs. Rubio debate is over who would be a better candidate to beat Trump. However, there’s a much more direct way to prove that you’re the best candidate to beat Trump: beat him.

Right now, undecided conservative anti-Trump voters are looking for somebody who can finally put Trump in his place. Whoever accomplishes that has the best chance to win over undecided anti-Trump voters. The strategy shouldn’t be to narrow the field down to two, and then assume that anti-Trump voters will flock to you, the strategy should be to beat Trump. Additionally, if Rubio wants to win over Cruz voters in a two-man race, it seems that he’d have a much better chance if he hadn’t just spent weeks negatively attacking Cruz to try to drive him out of the race.

If Rubio were to effectively take on Trump, he’d have a lot of conservative cheering him on, and he’d prove to undecided voters that he’d be the best person to be in the final two, and simultaneously help fight the notion that he’s too wet behind the ears to take on Clinton. If, instead, he overthinks things, goes after Cruz, and lets his last best hope of confronting Trump before Super Tuesday go up in smoke, he’ll come off looking like a wuss who isn’t ready to take on Trump, let alone Hillary Clinton, and will demoralize many conservatives in the process.

Given that Rubio is a football fanatic, let me use a football anology. Would Rubio rather that his Dolphins go into the last week of the regular season depending on other teams losing to make the playoffs? Or would he rather they control their own destiny? If he’d rather control his own destiny, he should go directly at Trump rather than craft a strategy that’s contingent on other candidates dropping out.

I should add that this same analysis could just as easily apply to Cruz’s debate strategy.

So, to reiterate: Given that the ultimate goal is to beat Trump, the strategy should be to beat Trump.