I wrote about Cruz v. Rubio for Politico today:
Amid the Republican Party’s panic over Donald Trump, the media’s obsession with his every statement and misstatement, and the pundit’s predictions of an imminent Trump-induced GOP civil war, there are glimmers of a less alarming and bizarre Republican nomination battle.
A funny thing is happening on the way to the GOP meltdown. According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, the two most popular and broadly acceptable candidates in the field are perhaps the most talented and most reliably conservative. Oh, and by the way, they are Hispanics in their 40s.
Donald Trump is still leading the polls and has demonstrated a staying power that has confounded his critics, but Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are now beginning to stand out in the rest of the field, clustering with Ben Carson in effectively a three-way tie for second place nationally…
A Cruz-Rubio race would play as the grass roots vs. the establishment, although Rubio in the establishment slot would be an enormous victory for the tea party.
In this scenario, the so-called establishment candidate would be the guy who ran for Senate in Florida in 2010 against a sitting Republican governor with presidential ambitions and the firm backing of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. As far as RINO-hunting goes, by stopping Charlie Crist and chasing him out of the party, Rubio still has the best and most consequential hide.