With less than 90 days to the Iowa Caucus, the political field on the Republican side remains crowded and murky. But if you look more closely, it is actually starting to become defined. And the one overwhelming thing that jumps out at me is that the GOP has to nominate Marco Rubio if it is to have any chance of winning in 2016. But the path to the nomination for Rubio is difficult, despite his relative success at the most recent debate. Continued below...
Rubio has jumped in the Monmouth poll from 4% in New Hampshire to 13% today based on polling after the debate. That is a real bump, but still leaves him third and Trump well on top. Trump has yet to spend a dime on advertising, and so far has kept his powder dry.
The bottom ten candidates have no chance of winning the nomination and would do us all a favor by dropping out, in fact that would help the debates because there would only be 5 or 6 people left on stage, making it much more manageable. Christie, Fiorina, Jindal, Graham, Huckabee, Santorum, Paul, and Pataki all have zero chance and should drop out.
There are only 6 possible candidates that could win the nomination at this point. Trump, Carson, Cruz, Bush, Rubio, and sort of Kasich, although Kasich's appeal is likely limited to New Hampshire. But in a general election, Trump would get crushed, losing both minority and women's votes by record margins. Carson is a policy moron who doesn't know anything about the government, rejects evolution, and has been a paid shill for a snake oil company. He has zero chance of winning a general election. Cruz is the second coming of Barry Goldwater, without his charm. Bush is clearly a disastrous campaigner. He is horrible in debates, and he has no idea what to do about his brother's awful tenure. His platform is a warmed over version of his brother's, massive tax cuts for the wealthy and an aggressive militaristic approach to foreign policy.
Rubio is the only GOP candidate that makes a plausible general election winner. His policy stands are just as noxious but he is much better at obfuscating the issue, as he did in the debate when he tried to tapdance around how regressive his tax proposals are. He can think on his feet and debates as well or better than any other GOP candidate. His manner is mild enough to fool those who don't realize how extreme his views are. He wants to zero out taxes on capital, allowing wealthy people to earn billions tax free from stock and real estate investments while average workers pay 30% or more.
Rubio and his supporters probably think his support for immigration reform will allow him to win over Latinos, but Rubio flip flopped and has denounced his prior role as the Senate leader among the GOP for immigration reform.
Looking at this landscape, the GOP establishment is gradually coming to the conclusion that they need to nominate Rubio. But that is easier said than done. Trump still leads, and even with the debate bump, Rubio only has 13% support in NH. Cruz and Bush are down around 6-7%, and so is Kasich. The problem for the GOP is the total sane vote is only 20% of the electorate, and is now being split up by Bush, Kasich, and Rubio. Bush is not going to give up, and with his 100 million dollar Super PAC, can unleash a firestorm of ads on Rubio in NH and South Carolina, preventing him from consolidating the sane vote base. If that remains fractured, then those states will likely be won by one of the crazies. Right now I think Carson will take Iowa and Trump NH, with SC going to Trump or perhaps Cruz. There is no way the GOP establishment can get Bush to drop out in favor of Rubio, and Rubio knows he is the better candidate and will not drop out for Bush. Kasich is still in the mix. Rubio's biggest problem is fundraising for his own campaign and his Super PAC, both of which are underfunded. Bush and Cruz both have substantial ground assets in the early states, but Rubio has very little, and has not spent much time in NH or SC. His ability at this point to turn his good debate performance and a last minute desperate push by the GOP establishment in his favor into an actual victory in the nominating contest is hard to gauge.
But even if Rubio won the nomination, it is not clear yet how good a candidate he really is. He has not been tested yet, and has avoided the media spotlight. Still, he is the GOP's only hope.