New York Times (Opinion)
By Ross Douthat
January 28, 2016
Late
in October, when it was still possible to envision a somewhat normal
Republican primary season, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush had a moment on the
debate stage that seemed
as if it might be a turning point in the campaign.
Bush,
the well-funded front-runner whose poll numbers had been sliding since
the summer, came prepared to swing at Rubio over his missed votes in the
Senate. Rubio, the
upstart running against his former mentor, responded with a mix of
grace and pity, dismissing Jeb’s attack as a desperate flail, taken
because “someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help
you.”
In
the month after that confrontation, Bush’s national numbers slipped
into the lower single digits, while Rubio’s climbed steadily. In early
December, he and Ted Cruz
both had about 15 percent support in the national polls, below Donald
Trump but well above all the other professional politicians in the race.
It seemed as if they were rising in tandem, and that Rubio was destined
to be the establishment’s preferred candidate
in a three-man race with Cruz and Trump — and based on past results,
the likely nominee.
But
instead, Rubio hit a ceiling, while Cruz continued to climb. And
despite a long series of “moments” when he was supposed to consolidate
his position, the Florida senator
is still basically stuck. He’s hovering just above 10 percent in
national polls and in New Hampshire, trailing Cruz and Trump by a clear
margin in Iowa, and still lagging Jeb in the endorsement primary.
Nobody’s
sure why. Rubio has various weaknesses, but he’s well liked by
Republican voters, he polls very well against Hillary Clinton, and
nothing scandalous has emerged
to derail him. Yet here we are just days from Iowa, and prominent
Republicans are variously frustrated and confused, resigning themselves
to Trump-versus-Cruz or attempting complicated bank shots to take one or
both of them out … instead of doing what many
people expected and simply rallying to Rubio.
Here are some possible explanations:
It’s
all about immigration. In a race dominated by Trumpian nationalism, and
with immigration restriction increasingly a litmus test for many
conservative voters, Rubio’s
role in the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill is plainly a liability.
Possibly enough of a liability, in fact, to deny him the nomination.
At
the same time, though, there are still lots of Republican voters who
don’t consider the immigration issue a top priority, and lots of
Republican donors and elected
officials for whom Rubio’s “Gang of Eight” support is probably an
asset. So immigration might explain why he trails Trump and Cruz in
Iowa, but not why he can’t put away Jeb, Chris Christie and John Kasich.
It’s
all Jeb’s fault. This is the narrative advanced by many of Rubio’s
supporters, and not only them. In effect, they argue, Jeb’s campaign has
become an anti-Rubio zombie
operation. Even as Bush’s own numbers have remained stagnant, his
“super PAC,” Right to Rise, has spent a fortune on anti-Rubio attack
ads. In so doing, The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes argues, Team Bush
is effectively running a suicide mission against
Rubio, whose only “lasting legacy” will be “its prominent role in
making Donald Trump the nominee.”
This
seems a little harsh (and not only because I still don’t think Trump
will be the nominee). A candidacy that can’t survive a run of attack ads
isn’t a candidacy destined
for glory. Rubio has done less than Jeb to take the fight to Trump. And
Jeb is about even with his former protégé in New Hampshire polling now,
so it’s not clear that he’s just a zombie at this point.
Still,
the Right to Rise onslaught is a decent explanation for Rubio’s
stagnation. But not a complete one, since it’s not as though Jeb
actually controls the entire Republican
establishment. If his donors were really unhappy with his strategy they
could desert en masse to Rubio; if leading Republican politicians felt
certain Rubio was the better bet, they could counter Jeb’s ads with a
wave of endorsements. But they haven’t, again
despite Rubio’s higher favorables and better general election odds.
Which raises the possibility that …
Rubio’s
a little too conservative. Both the Republican donor class and the New
Hampshire electorate, in slightly different ways, are more moderate or
even liberal than
the wider Republican electorate. Meanwhile, as Harry Enten of
FiveThirtyEight points out, Rubio is a lot more conservative than his
“great establishment hope” image currently suggests.
Moreover,
his conservatism is most pronounced on social issues, which makes him
culturally alien to both the libertarian and Yankee moderates of New
Hampshire and the
secular and socially liberal segment of the party’s donor base.
Which
is why it isn’t necessarily surprising that Rubio is polling slightly
better in evangelical-heavy Iowa than in New Hampshire, or that he’s
having trouble putting
away more moderate figures like Christie and Kasich in the latter
state. It may well be, as Enten suggests, that a lot of Republican
bigwigs are just much more politically and culturally comfortable with
the other candidates in the establishment “lane,” and
so they aren’t ready to throw in with Rubio’s piety and Tea Party-ish
voting record until they have no other choice.
Then there also might be a more personal element as well …
Rubio
seems a little too ambitious. He’s no Ted Cruz, whose naked
self-promotion and penchant for making enemies has left him effectively
running against the entire institutional
party. But as Matt Yglesias of Vox notes, Rubio’s ascent has been
marked by repeated acts of rebellion and opportunism — many of them
successful, all of them quite normal for politicians, but condensed into
a relatively narrow span of time.
The
G.O.P.’s history as a royalist party is somewhat exaggerated, but it
has repeatedly handed nominations to elder statesmen in years when it
seems to be their turn,
and the royalist tendency is naturally strongest in the party elite. It
may not be only Jeb Bush’s inner circle that regards Rubio’s rise as a
little swift, and his decision to run as a little premature, even
arrogant. There may be a sense that he needs to
prove himself with voters, to actually win a caucus or a primary,
before he can lay claim to wide support.
In the quest for that support, he has one glaring problem …
Rubio’s
strengths might be a bad fit for the 2016 mood. Part of the reason that
pundits (myself included) have tended to rate the Florida senator
highly as a candidate
is that he combines a conservative record with some of the gifts of
Bill Clinton circa 1992 and Barack Obama circa 2008 — eloquence,
optimism, a strong personal narrative, a clear interest in domestic
policy.
But
in this election, many Republican voters seem to be looking for a
Richard Nixon — a hard man for hard times, you might say, which isn’t
really a slogan that fits the
boyish-looking first term senator.
This
is why perhaps — just perhaps — Rubio’s strategy of avoiding conflicts
with Trump has been a strategic error. A young politician can try to
project toughness all
he likes, but the only way to actually prove your toughness is to fight
the battle that’s right in front of you.
And for Rubio, sooner rather than too late, that might mean finding a way to fight with Donald Trump and win.
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