A marriage made in hell
by digby
In the unlikely event that you are unaware of the stakes for the GOP if either of the current frontrunners make it to the general election, this Vox article by Andrew Prokop lays it out nicely:
Let’s be clear on the political stakes here. It is not impossible that Trump or Cruz could win a general election. But there’s ample reason to believe that a Trump or Cruz nomination makes all of the following far more likely:
Sweeping electoral defeat for Republicans, for the presidency and in the Senate at least (some Democrats have even suggested to me that the House could be put in play)
Either a liberal takeover of the Supreme Court or a missed chance for conservatives to pad their majority (since four of the court’s nine justices will be older than 80 when the next president is inaugurated)
A tarnishing of the GOP’s image among Hispanics that will last a very long time. (This is obviously true for Trump, but Cruz is also far further to the right on immigration than any modern GOP nominee.)
With so many other options available, nominating either Trump or Cruz would be a tremendous risk to take for a party that has any interest in winning.
And yet somehow Trump and Cruz have ended up first and second in the polls, with one of them leading Iowa and the other ahead in New Hampshire.
He admits that other frontrunners have collapsed all at once (Howard Dean being the obvious example) but notes the important difference here:
Is the establishment really still willing to assume that two poll leaders will just collapse?
Two poll leaders who not only have excited voters but who each has access to tens of millions in cash?
He wonders why the GOP establishment has failed to rally around Rubio who has always been to logical choice on paper and goes over all the reporting which shows that the Big Money Boyz and the party poohbahs are still flummoxed about what to do about Trump and Cruz. They just don’t have a clue about how to stop this train and it gaining momentum every minute they fail to do it.
It’s looking more and more like one of them if not both will be there down the stretch and either with a good chance of winning the nomination. In fact, it’s looking more and more to me as if Cruz is actually going to end up being the establishment choice which is so perfect I can’t believe it: they hate him and he hates them, a GOP match made in heaven.
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