The Republican establishment has chosen Marco Rubio as its official savior, with a flood of donors and endorsements moving to Rubio in the wake of Jeb Bush’s exit from the presidential race. Problem is, Rubio still isn’t winning anything and doesn’t look likely to do so anytime soon, so his backers are now trying to make that a little more likely by muscling John Kasich out of the race. Rubio is the only choice, they insist:
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch on Monday threw his support behind Rubio, and he said it would be helpful to Rubio for Kasich to drop his bid. "It would be, but that's up to John and John's got every right to stay in the race," Hatch said. "But sooner or later, it's got to come down to Marco if people really look at it carefully."
Does it “got to come down to Marco,” though? Rubio has been endlessly propped up by the Republican establishment and by the media, yet he still hasn’t done a whole hell of a lot in this race. Voters keep being told he is The One—but they don’t seem too eager to go along with it. The media, though, is on board, with the Chuck Todd crew writing that:
… maybe the biggest impediment to stopping Trump right now is … John Kasich. Think about it: If you assume that a big chunk of the Jeb Bush vote goes to Rubio, that means that Rubio can rack up delegates under the proportional allocation formulas. But Rubio won't be able to grow his percentages as long as Kasich is in the race ...
Maybe Rubio should have to show that a big chunk of the Jeb Bush vote will indeed go to him. Maybe he should have to fight and win, rather than coasting along on a sea of high-profile adoration.
For his part, Kasich says he’s picking up new donors and still sees a path to victory, so he has no plans of dropping out of the race anytime soon.