Could It Be Cruz-Rubio?

A match made in… politics?
(CQ Roll Call via AP Images)

That what Spengler predicts:

Republican voters think the economy is the number one issue but can’t manage a public discussion on economic policy, as I observed Oct. 4 (“Who are you, and what have you done with the Republican Party?“). They flail at hot-button issues, defunding Planned Parenthood, for example, and look for scapegoats such as illegal Mexican immigrants (whose numbers are actually falling). It seems pointless to make predictions of any sort in the midst of the moral equivalent of a riot, but nonetheless I will go out on a limb: the Republicans will nominate Sen. Ted Cruz as president and Sen. Marco Rubio as vice-president, by process of elimination.

This conclusion seems inevitable by process of elimination.

The path in front of Cruz seems daunting, given that he’s stuck in most polls at about 6%, stubbornly refusing to rise even as Trump’s support slips.

But then there’s some electoral math George Will totaled up a few days ago:

Cruz has county chairs organizing in all 172 counties in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. National Review’s Eliana Johnson reports that through the second quarter, Cruz had raised more “hard” dollars than any of his rivals, and super PACs supporting him have raised more than all but those supporting Jeb Bush. Jason Johnson describes the delegate selection process as follows:

Of the 624 delegates at stake on March 1, 231 are from Cruz’s Texas and Georgia, where Cruz inherited Scott Walker’s entire operation. With Oklahoma, whose closed primary will be especially conservative, these three states have 274 delegates, almost a quarter of the number needed to nominate. Eighty-seven of the 155 delegates allocated on March 5 will be from Louisiana and Kansas. On March 15, when winner-take-all primaries begin and 367 delegates will be allocated, Bush and Marco Rubio will compete for Florida’s 99 delegates, while Cruz is well-positioned for North Carolina’s 72 and Missouri’s 52 (Cruz’s campaign manager, Missourian Jeff Roe, has run many campaigns there).

If that seems a little less daunting, maybe it should. And the kicker? Foreshadowing Spengler, Will writes that the winnowing process might well produce “two young, Southern, first-term Cuban-American senators.”

I’m reminded of the youthful, Southern ticket the Democrats put together in 1992.