The Case for Cruz

Idaho’s primary is tomorrow, and for a first time in a long time, the Idaho primary actually matters. I have previously endorsed Cruz, and wanted to take this opportunity to exhort my fellow Idahoans to help do their part in deflating the Trump balloon.

But first, for my foreign readers, a few words of encouragement. I imagine this whole thing is not unlike an American watching a cricket match. You can tell by the cheering which side is happy, but beyond that the whole thing recedes into the great cloud of unknowing. So here is a quick explanation for you.

Just as the parliamentary system invites the existence of splinter parties and coalitions, so the American constitutional system “invites” two parties. Throughout our history, we have always had two major parties, and then the small groups are off on the edges. The two major parties are not immortal, and sometimes one of the edge parties replaces a major party, but the simple fact of two major parties is very much part of our unwritten constitution.

So here is a handy glossary. Our primary elections are the time when the two parties decide who to put forward as their champion or representative. To prepare for a national election, sometimes called the general election, such as the presidential election is, each state holds a primary to decide how many delegates supporting a particular candidate they will send to the national convention at which that champion will be selected. Primaries can either be caucuses, where the decision is made in town-hall-style meetings across the state, or in an election, where people come to a polling station, cast their votes, and then leave. Primaries can also be open or closed. A closed primary is limited to registered members of the political party in question. An open primary is one in which outsiders or members of the opposing political party can come vote in your primary in order to help select a candidate more to their liking. Another factor is found in the fact that some states have primaries where the winner-takes-all the delegates, and other states assign the delegates in proportion to the voting.

At the Republican convention, if a candidate arrives there with more than 1,237 delegates, then he will be nominated by the party on the first ballot. If two or more candidates arrive below that threshold, then no one wins on the first ballot. When that starts to happen, after a certain number of voting attempts, the delegates are released to support anybody they want, and deals start to get cut in back rooms. That, my friends, is what we call a brokered convention.

So in contrast to the primary elections, where the parties decide, we also have a general election, where the country decides. Got it?

Incidentally, the Idaho Republicans used to have an open primary, but this year it is now a closed primary. I would encourage anyone who is not sure of their party affiliation to check your status before the election tomorrow. If you have been an independent as I have been, you can register as a Republican at the polls if you have a current drivers’ license with your current address. If you don’t have that, then bring some other proof of residence, like a utilities bill with your name on it. I should also mention that Carl Berglund, a member of our community here, is on the ballot running for the state legislature as a liberty candidate.

Now with the array of Republican presidential candidates at the beginning of this process, I had a selection that I was willing to consider supporting if they were still in it when the circus got to Idaho. There was Cruz and Paul on the right, Bush and Rubio on the left, and Walker in the middle. Now when I say that Rubio was on the left, I don’t mean he is on the left. I mean he is on my left. But of course, considered that way, Cruz is on my left. I would not have considered voting for Christie or Graham, et al.

Having revealed the extent of my willingness to compromise with impurity, let me say something about the insidious rot of perfectionism in politics. There are three kinds of candidates. There are those who would go openly and proudly in the wrong direction, like Hillary the Hardened, or Bernie, the Likeable Commie. Then there are those who would go in the wrong direction while pretending to be conservative — someone like Romney or Kasich. Then there are those who would actually go in the right direction inadequately — the current slate of acceptable options. And last would be the candidate who would do everything right. His only problem is that he is not old enough to run, not having been born yet.

In short, I stand more than ready to vote for King Asa, knowing full well that a refusal to remove the high places was part of his platform (1 Kings 15:14). Political perfectionism, a refusal to sully your precious vote with the name of a compromised candidate invites a conspiratorial mindset, one in which every candidate is by definition compromised. But we are not going to be well served by ideological ultras. Trump puts the lie to the pragmatic “anybody but the Democrat” philosophy, but we are also crippled by those who would not vote for anyone less pure than the heavenly seraphim.

So then, I am among those who can be counted on to #NeverTrump. But I would vote for Rubio, were he to get the nomination, though I don’t like some of his stands. I would not vote for Kasich. I will vote for Cruz in Idaho’s primary tomorrow, and hope that I will get a chance to vote for him again in the general. To recap, out of the four remaining Republicans, I would vote for two of them in the general, and would not vote for two of them in the general. I would vote for Rubio willingly, but not enthusiastically. I would vote for Cruz enthusiastically. He represents constitutional sanity in a viable candidate, and we have not had this kind of opportunity for many years.

But among conservatives, the concern about Cruz has been that he is too hard-edged, too conservative, for the general election. The received wisdom is that we have to put up a moderate conservative to defeat the Democrats. In the grip of this delusion, the Republicans have tended run candidates like McCain and Romney. At what point should we consider that strategy to have been an ill-advised one?

The usual argument for Rubio is based on the assumption that he would do much better against Hillary in the general election than Cruz would. I think this is misguided for three reasons.

First, the assumption is based on hypothetical head-to-head polling many months before the event. Polls are problematic for many reasons, but just take a recent example. Cruz shellacked Trump in Kansas by around 25 points, and the Real Clear Politics poll average had Trump up there by 9 points.

Second, as Trump’s recent decline has shown, debates matter a lot. I do think Rubio would do well in a one-on-one debate against Hillary, but I also think Cruz would dismantle her. In fact, I believe that Hillary is extraordinarily bad at what she is doing, and so this general election looks propitious for pretty much any Republican other than Trump. That being the case, just follow out the National Review rule — support the candidate who is simultaneously simultaneously electable and the most conservative — and the clear choice should be Cruz. We ought not be deterred by the fact that most appeals to this rule are to justify voting for a squish. That said, I think that we now have an instance where the rule actually justifies a hard right turn.

And last, I think we need to look at the facts on the ground. Thus far, Rubio has won Minnesota (a state) and Puerto Rico (a territory). He is way behind, and as the cliche has it, his only real “path forward” would be found in a brokered convention, which would be a disaster for many reasons. If the two greatest vote-getters in the primaries were the antinomian and the renegade, and if the party establishment arranges to nominate a choir boy, then we will have a new experience of what “sheet of flame” looks like.

In the meantime, Cruz is actually beating Trump in remarkable ways. He is doing this despite having other non-Trump candidates in the race. The other night, Cruz beat Trump handily in Maine and Kansas, beat him going away in fact. And in Louisiana and Kentucky, while Trump won those states, he did so barely — Cruz was right on his heels. So the count of states was 2 to 2, but Cruz won the night easily in the total delegate count. And if Rubio had not been in the race, Cruz would have beat Trump in Kentucky and Louisiana both.

Trump currently has 384 delegates. Cruz has 300. Rubio has 151 and Kasich has 37. Cruz can catch Trump, and I don’t believe anyone else can. Trump is in fact losing momentum, and this means that Rubio is now in a position to make #NeverTrump actually happen — but he has to suspend his campaign to do it. I hope that he does so, and I also hope that the Cruz campaign is having backchannel talks with the Rubio campaign. An olive branch would be nice.