Via Politico, skip to 12:00 of the clip below for the key bit. Oh, its on. Or is it? Normally, a candidate for president claiming that hes going to peel away his opponents supporters and win the nomination would be so banal that it wouldnt qualify as news. Its the ultimate dog bites man story. Of course Cruz believes this. If he didnt, why would he be running? But these arent normal circumstances. Cruz is the only Republican in the field who has yet to utter a critical or discouraging syllable about Trump, part of his talk-radio-ish strategy not to say or do anything that might annoy the many newly minted Trump fans in the GOP base. But now he has, and Trump being as thin-skinned as he is, theres no telling whether hell shrug this off as a routine expression of confidence by an opponent or some sort of attack that warrants dismissing Cruz as an ineffectual loser whos probably not eligible to be president in the first place.
The question is why, after having steered so far clear of criticizing Trump to this point, Cruz has suddenly allowed himself to talk openly about picking up Trumps voters once they realize whos done the most in the field to stand up to Washington. I think Peggy Noonans got the answer:
[Trump] continues with high negatives. But for all the dopey, damaging dramas hes gotten himself into the past few months hes maintained his position. Imagine if hed been disciplined. The first act was Im Here and Im Yuge. Now Act II: I Mean It and Im Staying.
The wisdom now, and its not stupid, is that as time passes the field will narrow. More candidates will drop out, voters will begin to coalesce behind other front-runners, and suddenly one of them will be polling at 27% or 32%. Various powers will throw their weight behind front-runner No. 2 or 3 or 4. But this year has reminded us to expect the unexpected. Maybe not enough candidates will drop out to make a difference. Maybe the splintered field stays splintered. How then do you stop Mr. Trump? Maybeagainonly Trump stops Trump. |
Yeah, the lesson of the last three weeks of polling is that while Trump is no longer rising, hes not falling much either. Hes still in the mid- to high 20s after a pre-debate high in some polls in the low 30s, but thats been good for first place in every national poll save one. Cruz may have been expecting the Trump fade to have begun by now, freeing up lots of disaffected anti-establishment voters just in time for a Cruz-led challenge to Obama this month over the debt ceiling. Hasnt happened. This floor speech, for instance, was aimed directly at Trump voters, I think. Listen to the clip below and youll hear him note that he was the only candidate running who was willing to risk a shutdown in the name of defunding Planned Parenthood. Meanwhile, according to the last national poll taken, Trump is still 20 points ahead of him. Just this morning, Trump told MSNBC that hes never getting out of the race. Cruz may have finally concluded that Trumps not going to jump off the cliff himself. Hes going to need a little push.
Which brings us back to one of the great mysteries of the primary: Is Cruz right that hell end up inheriting most of Trumps support if/when he drops out? The numbers dont support that (yet), but that may be because another outsider candidate, Ben Carson, is momentarily in Cruzs way. Once he and Trump have both faded, voters looking for an anti-establishmentarian may reconcile themselves to Cruz. Whether that happens, I think, depends mainly on what ends up mattering more, his message or his mien. No one can deliver anti-Washington red meat like Cruz, but hes every inch the polished, Harvard-trained lawyer when he talks. He and Trump couldnt be more different in that respect. And of course, Cruz is a conservative ideologue whereas Trump is, er, not. How much of an obstacle, or benefit, is that conservatism among Trump voters? Stay tuned.