Rubio Needs to Step Aside and Clear the Field For Ted Cruz, Not Vice Versa

I consider this whole "Step aside for the other guy" thing kind of silly, but the Rubes have been doing this for months and months. It's incredible to listen to them when they think they're surrounded by like-minded people, because they feel free to spin their imaginations like children playing cops and robbers.

There are all these incredible, convoluted demands of what must happen: Cruz must use his warchest to run ads against Trump, but not Rubio, in order to take out Rubio's rival Trump while doing no damage to Rubio. Kasich needs to drop out immediately and endorse Rubio. Trump, for his part, must use all of his free media to attack Cruz, but never Rubio. Ben Carson must announce that he will deliberately botch operations and kill children unless people vote for Rubio.

They actually talk and think like this. They're so far gone they think it's perfectly normal to demand/insist/predict/wishcast a conspiracy of thousands all acting in concert to elect their opponent.

However, since the Rubes are now chattering about what Cruz "must" do in order to usher in the Age of Mario, I'm glad to see some pushback from Cruz supporters, saying "No, it is Mario who must step aside to enable Cruz to stride to victory."

The other problem [apart from it being silly childish dream-farming to keep talking about all of Rubio's rivals conspiring to nominate Rubio] with this Rubio–Cruz deal is it's based on the assumption that Cruz’s supporters would head en masse over to Rubio. Will that happen? Most likely not. Many will, but it's not certain that enough will fall in line to defeat Trump.

Pushing Cruz out will be perceived as the establishment once again picking our candidate.

While Cruz supporters share his deep conservative values, they also have other concerns that align them more with Trump, especially if the true conservative were to step out of the race. Fifteen percent of Cruz supporters want someone outside the establishment; 24 percent are angry with the federal government and politicians in Washington; 24 percent want to deport illegal immigrants; and 23 percent want a temporary ban on Muslims.

If Cruz were to leave the race, many (some?) of these voters would fall in with Trump, not Rubio. Or they would stay home, just like many non-Trumpers in the GOP are threatening if Trump gets the nomination. It seems everyone has a bridge too far. The point is, they all can’t be relied on to hop over to the Rubio bandwagon.

So here's what I think must happen, Mario-Style.

1. Obviously, Mario must exit the race and deliver a fulsome speech declaring that it is Ted Cruz who is the real Choice of a New Generation, and then, to make sure people really believe him, he must declare himself an outright fraud and confess that he forged his birth certificate when younger in order to illegally play in little league -- you know, like you see 17 year old Dominican "kids" do sometimes -- and that his actual age is 58. He should then prostrate himself in the dust and slap his face with dirt and straw like a Dishonored Samurai.

2. Donald Trump should use his outsized share of free media to talk up what a wonderful guy Ted Cruz is, and how Ted Cruz is the obvious choice for President, and also kind of make it clear that he's not all that bright. He should also confess that he's not in fact even a US Citizen, as his father specifically had his mother deliver him in the Cayman Islands, intending him to serve as a living Tax Shelter.

3. Ben Carson should sign up to man Hillary Clinton's voter contact call centers. Instead of telling people where to vote, he can lull them to sleep with soft-spoken hallucinogenic tone poems about firework dolphins swimming in the candylight sky.

4. Jeb Bush should un-suspend his campaign, and then (very illegally, but it's worth it) coordinate with his super-pac to run a series of advertisements suggesting, falsely, that Marco Rubio made all of his money in cockfighting and something called "dog jai alai," where you score points by whipping rockhard balls at upwards of 100 mph at dogs chained to the ground. Puppies are the smallest targets, so they're worth 100 points, like the Sneetch in Quidditch.

5. John Kasich should simply disappear. I see his best career path as becoming some kind of reclusive hippie scrapyard artiste, welding together exhaust pipes from old cars and broke-down Jungle Gyms and spraypainting walls with garish tableaus of Jesus flashing gang-signs.

posted by Ace at 02:12 PM

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