Rubio could win GOP nod via process of elimination

Ross Douthat

Four years ago this week, I boldly predicted that Mitt Romney would inevitably be his party’s nominee.

It was admittedly not really the boldest of predictions. But the press corps was obsessed with the revolving door of non-Romney “front-runners,” and many intelligent people were still convinced that Romney’s ideological deviations would cost him the nomination in the end.

They did not, and you could predict as much by using a very simple method: All of the other candidates were impossible to imagine as the nominee.

2016 is very different: The GOP candidates are stronger overall, there’s no one with Romney’s hammerlock on money and endorsements, and Donald Trump and Ben Carson have more staying power than Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain.

But you can still play a version of the elimination game.

Play it with me. No major party has ever nominated a figure like Trump or Carson, and I don’t believe that the 2016 GOP will be the first. Rand Paul’s libertarian moment came and went; Carly Fiorina seems like she’s running for a Cabinet slot; John Kasich is too moderate (and ornery about it); Chris Christie has never recovered from the traffic cones; Scott Walker and Rick Perry are gone. Ted Cruz has the base’s love, but far too many leading party actors hate him. Bobby Jindal and Mike Huckabee are boxed out by Carson and Cruz; Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham and George Pataki are boxed out by voter indifference.

That leaves Jeb! and Marco Rubio. But Jeb’s campaign has been one long flail. So that leaves Rubio. His past support for comprehensive immigration reform is a major liability, but Rubio has shown a lot more finesse on that issue than has Jeb, and one liability isn’t usually enough to doom a candidate who otherwise looks like a winner.

And that’s how Rubio looks right now. The betting markets have him as the most likely nominee, and — since this is quadrennial prediction time — I’ll say that I agree: I think he’s the real front-runner, and I predict that he will win.

But I make that prediction gingerly, not boldly, because Rubio is a strange sort of front-runner. He has never led a national poll. He is not raking in endorsements and cash. He’s earned a round of favorable coverage after each debate without making much progress overall.

It’s also easier to imagine him winning a national primary than it is to figure out which early state he’ll win: He’s a little too moderate for Iowa, a little too conservative for New Hampshire, perhaps not quite combative enough for South Carolina ... and so he might end up in the Rudy Giuliani-esque position of banking on his native Florida.

It’s also possible that there will be a consolidation of money and support around Rubio that enables him to eke out a narrow Iowa or New Hampshire win, in which case he could very easily run the table thereafter.

But the question people keep asking is why that consolidation isn’t happening already. Shouldn’t a few more debate-watching voters be saying: The Donald is fun and I admire Carson, but let’s get real: I’m going to vote Rubio?

I think they will. I predict they will. But in the event they don’t, I’m guessing that Mitt Romney is still ready to serve.