By Howard Foster -
Two weeks ago I was supporting Marco Rubio. He was overall an electable moderate conservative and, admittedly a charlatan on immigration, having switched his position so many times as to make it a worthless promise.
But politics is a fluid affair, where participants must re-evaluate their candidates in light of events over and over again. For a variety of reasons – inauthenticity, his mean-sounding attacks on Trump, the perception of hopelessness – Rubio has collapsed. It seems likely he will lose his home state on Tuesday and be forced to “suspend” his campaign.
Cruz is making this more likely by opening offices in Florida and siphoning anti-Trump votes away from him. It makes no sense to waste my vote on Rubio. I want to stop Trump, and the race is now down to him and Cruz, notwithstanding the Chicago Tribune’s analysis and endorsement.
I hope Senator Cruz will choose Marco Rubio as his running mate. Rubio is non-strident, non-threatening to moderates, and might be able to deliver Florida. Having two Hispanics running for President, neither of whom is for “immigration reform,” the RNC solution to Romney’s defeat, might actually show that demographic group thinks more like the rest of the country than establishment Republicans believe.
Cruz does not yet appeal to people who are not on the right. Yet the head-to-head polls show him beating Hillary Clinton by 1-3 points. If he is able to defeat her it will be because she is even less unappealing than he is.
Ronald Reagan was in roughly the same position in early 1980. I grew up in the Boston area, and remember well what my family and friends thought of him at the time. But by November many of them voted for him unenthusiastically. His campaign softened his rough edges and persuaded the middle of the electorate that he could be president.
Ted Cruz is extremely smart and surely understands he must do this. I’m confident he will and that Donald Trump never can.
