Mitt Romney was clear about who shouldn’t be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee when he spoke Thursday in Utah. He was not clear about whom he did want to see. He said Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich need to “find common ground” in the push back against the rising tide of Donald Trump.
In the world of Republican partisanship, that probably meant getting behind runner-up Cruz.
Deepening this impression was Cruz’s victory in Saturday’s caucuses in Kansas and Maine. Kansas wasn’t terribly surprising given Cruz’s nearly identical trajectory to Rick Santorum’s 2012 run, in which the arch-conservative Catholic appealed to the Republican evangelical base.
But Maine was surprising – almost stunning – and that small, rural, rugged north-eastern state, mostly forgotten by official Washington, might prove to be the turning point in the GOP nomination. Maine governor Paul LePage endorsed Trump, but Romney’s anti-Trump speech Thursday may have been enough for moderate Republican clam diggers who still hold Romney in high regard.
Cruz knows Saturday’s results made his case. He intimated that now would be a good time for rivals Rubio and Kasich to drop out. “We’ll continue to amass delegates but what needs to happen is the field needs to continue to narrow,” he said, according to Politico. “If we’re divided, Donald wins.”
He added: “The other candidates are increasing the likelihood that Donald Trump is the nominee.”
The clock is ticking. There are two races on 15 March that are must-wins for whoever is going be to a viable Trump alternative. Both states are winner-takes-all delegates. Kasich is the governor of Ohio and favored there. Rubio is a senator from Florida and favored there. If they drop out before then, they can release their current cache of delegates and make the way clear for Cruz.
The irony here is the Republican establishment despises Cruz. Bob Dole, George HW Bush, and George W Bush have made public their dim views of him. Cruz called majority leader Mitch McConnell a liar on the Senate floor. His public record of personal peevishness is growing.
But that was before Super Tuesday and the mathematical threat posed by Donald Trump. Even if Kasich and Rubio drop out, the odds are still against Cruz. Trump knows Cruz is being seen as the alternative. Cruz did well in Maine, Trump said Saturday, because “it’s very close to Canada.” Touché.