How About a Cruz-Rubio “Unity Ticket”?
Together, they might prevail.
While Marco Rubio won his first state (Minnesota) and surged late in Virginia and Ted Cruz won his home state of Texas, Oklahoma, and Alaska for a total of four state wins, Donald Trump did very well in the Super Tuesday primaries. So well, in fact, that conservatives are beginning to search in earnest for a means to win the GOP nomination with a conservative candidate.
One such idea is being touted as the “Unity” ticket of Cruz and Rubio (or Rubio and Cruz, though this seems less likely).
Writing at The Resurgent, Erick Erickson argues for this in stark terms: “Unite or Die.”
To truly beat Trump and keep his supporters from completely fleeing, Trump must be beaten in the primaries, not on the floor of the convention. And it is still mathematically possible, but it requires Cruz to win Florida, not Rubio. All of this talk by Rubio voters about later states, closed primaries, and favorability ignores voter psychology and, frankly, ignores the fact that Marco Rubio’s Gang of Eight position has poisoned the well too much for too many Republican voters. It will, in fact, go down as one of the worse political miscalculations in the last quarter century. All of this talk by Rubio voters ignores that Rubio and Cruz together can win Florida and Ohio, but divided cannot and only increase the odds of either a Trump nomination or the delegitimization of the process by which the GOP will pick its nominee.
Additionally, while Rubio’s strategy against Trump has worked terrifically, it also has reminded people that Rubio looks young and not necessarily experienced. The irony is that there really is only a minor age difference between Rubio and Cruz, but Rubio comes across as the brash kid because of his remarkably effective attacks on Trump.
Seeing Rubio and Cruz twice now tag team Donald Trump and throw Trump off his game, shows the Republican Party that a unity ticket would work and wold be effective. A unity ticket is the right thing to do.
This impression of Cruz as the more presidential of the two leads many of the unity ticket proponents to suggest that Cruz be at the top of such a ticket, and Cruz himself has seemed open to the idea.
Watch:
CBS reports on the idea of the GOP rallying behind Cruz:
Some conservative commentators are already cheering that idea on, especially since some recent polls indicate Rubio and Kasich could lose on their home turfs in Florida and Ohio, respectively, on March 15.
“It is time for Ted Cruz to accept we need a unity ticket and for Rubio to agree to be Cruz’s vice presidential pick, uniting the outsider and insider factions of the party and stopping Trump in the process,” wrote Erick Erickson in a blog post.
Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak supports that idea.
“Cruz and Rubio together would be a really powerful ticket. It would be forward-looking. You would have two first-time senators of Cuban descent in their 40s. It would be a tremendous contrast with Hillary and whoever she nominates” Mackowiak told CBS News.
For many going into the election, either a Cruz-Rubio or a Rubio-Cruz pairing was a dream team. And while some had their favorite, for many, it did not matter much who was on top. Things always look different in the middle of a campaign, and now the candidates appear to be at each other’s throats. But this appearance is deceiving. Setting aside the now routine and regrettable modern practice of a calling a rival candidate a “liar” about his own record — or what he says about yours — neither has personally attacked the other. . . . .
In the immediate wake of Super Tuesday, each has much to gain from such a deal. As the candidate currently with more delegates, Cruz would love to get enough support from Rubio’s delegates to secure the nomination. For Rubio, currently in third place, for whom holding his home state of Florida has now become a do-or-die situation, the idea of securing the vice presidency would be a valuable insurance policy. As a young man, he would have an inside track to the presidency in eight years. Our current immigration situation would likely be addressed by a Cruz-Rubio administration to the degree that the issue would no longer be any obstacle for him in 2024.
With Cruz winning three of the four closed primaries so far and the calendar moving toward more closed primary states, a Cruz-Rubio unity ticket may well be just the ticket for conservatives and Republicans who do not now and feel that they never can support Trump.
[Featured image via NBC News]
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Comments
Historically, it would have to be a Rubio-Cruz ticket because you always put the guy/gal who your opposition would hate even more than you in the VP slot.
I’m sure the Secret Service likes it that way.
Spengler proposed this back in October. I like Crubio but some prefer Cruzio. http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2015/10/is-spengler-crazy-to-suggest-this.html
Neither one is eligible, but whatever.
Bless your heart. Whatever happened to that lawsuit Trump promised to slap Cruz with anyway?
The lawsuit he knows full well has no merit? It’s apparently down the rabbit hole of Trump threats, bullying, and bizarrely childish school-yard taunts.
I see you regard the Constitution as a toiletry item. Have you ever read it? Do you understand English? Cruz and Rubio are naturalized US citizens.
“Cruz and Rubio are naturalized US citizens.”
Then you should be able to identify the day each of them naturalized, who it was who issued the oath, and know where we can find copies of the pile of paperwork required to naturalize.
What’s that? None of those items exist? So either then they are natural born citizens… or not citizens at all, and if the latter, how/why then are they qualified to be Senators?
Maybe, just maybe, you like Donald Trump don’t know what you are talking about in this area.
Have you ever read it? The list of legal requirements for the office includes nothing about “naturalized” citizens.
Where in the Constitution does it say that Rubio or Cruz are “naturalized” citizens? Why don’t you pull up US Code for naturalization and read the requirements. Show us that third category of citizenship via the law.
Clearly, there is no final decision on the meaning of “natural born citizen,” and this Commission is not the appropriate forum for the determination of major Constitutional questions. (That being said, the Commission notes that the appropriate raising in and deciding of this question by a court equipped to decide such Constitutional matters, so that all election officials and the American people know once and for all the definition of “natural born citizen,” would be helpful in avoiding uncertainty.) This from the NH Ballot Law Commission. Cruz Decision BLC 2015-2
When I was 6 years old, my Mother went before a judge who ordered that I was a US citizen.
I, like most Americans, actually had a Certificate of Citizenship. The last words of the judge was that I was now eligible to be the President of the United States.
@Neo
What was the name of the judge?
Debra Nelson?
Last week I had dinner with my 80 year old friend. She and her husband were both born and raised in the USA. He was an military officer and they were stationed all over the world. I asked her about the eligibility issue, since she had two sons born in France, off the base. She told me that both she and her husband had been told, as most military families, that her sons were not eligible to become President. It didn’t ruin their lives, it was just something that they lived with. So why is it totally different for Ted Cruz?
Neo: So who was the judge that said you could be president? It wasn’t John Roberts, was it?
“Then you should be able to identify the day each of them naturalized, who it was who issued the oath, and know where we can find copies of the pile of paperwork required to naturalize.”
Both Cruz and Rubio were naturalized at birth — Cruz per US statute, Rubio by the 14th Amendment. Neither inherited his US citizenship from his father as the Constitution requires. Both must point to man-made law to claim citizenship. Neither can claim US citizenship via natural law.
The only enumerated power the Constitution grants Congress regarding citizenship is that of naturalization. Anyone who claims citizenship on the basis of statute is thus naturalized, even if the naturalization occurred at the moment of birth. The Congress has no authority to redefine “natural born citizen”; a constitutional amendment would be necessary to either redefine the term or change the requirement.
The 14th Amendment says nothing about natural-born citizenship, only citizenship. SCOTUS has inappropriately ruled, in the Wong Kim Ark case, that the child of resident aliens born here is a citizen via the 14th Amendment. As Wong did not inherit his citizenship from his father, who was a Chinese citizen, he was obviously naturalized under the authority (corruptly or incompetently determined) of the positive man-made law, the 14th Amendment. The Wong ruling applies to Rubio and Jindal.
I must assume you are illiterate, illogical, slothful, or corrupt. Thanks to your inability or unwillingness to read the Constitution and understand its historical underpinnings, we were saddled with eight years of usurpation by the anti-American, natural-born Kenyan, Obama. Thanks a lot.
“Naturalized at birth”? There’s no such thing. Naturalized at birth = Natural born. You’re either born an American, or you had to take the oath at some point. There’s no middle ground.
Young children of foreign parents who become naturalized are naturalized with their parents without taking an oath. You are fabricating a definition of naturalization that does not exist. Naturalizatuon in the simply the process by which a noncitizen becomes a citizen. Cruz, Rubio, Jindal, and Obama, at best, were naturalized at birth under provisions of man-made US law.
Boogerman and foam boy!
Makes for a nice comic book.
Wait, where are all the Trump University hall monitors who were earlier demanding an end to namecalling and invective?
#NewTone #TrumpTone
Amy, we shouldn’t waste our breath. Even Trump knows that his fawning fans are “right-wing crazies” that he’s admitted to pandering to: http://hotair.com/archives/2016/03/04/former-personal-aide-to-mitt-romney-trump-kissed-his-ass-and-told-him-to-use-birtherism-to-excite-right-wing-crazies/
He knows his audience well. It’s really sad if you think about it.
Finally, something in the GOP that is making sense!!!
Please, let me clarify. Cruz has the best opportunity to oust Trump. Rubio is the only one left taking delegates from Cruz. If Rubio and Kasich would give way to Cruz in exchange for a nice position down the road, Cruz could certainly win. By bringing on Rubio it helps Cruz more than listening to Romney would.
No Rubio, no Rubio, no Rubio! Why place someone on the ticket who won’t carry his own state? He got elected and then stabbed his voters in the back when he caved to the establishment. Mr. Gang of 8 can retire.
The people pushing this seditious swill for the GOPe see stabbing voters in the back as the sine qua non of Establishment loyalty. They are openly trying to overturn the expressed will of the people and replace it with contrived tickets and jimmied technical gimmickry to deadlock the Convention and steal the ticket.
For them, Rubio’s demonstrated track record of lies is a big plus
OK, I’m frankly agnostic about this whole idea, but your crazy, fevered rhetoric is WAY past indefensible.
How is anything here “seditious”? That has a definition, you aren’t even in the same state, much less the same ballpark.
“They are openly trying to overturn the expressed will of the people and replace it with contrived tickets and jimmied technical gimmickry to deadlock the Convention and steal the ticket.”
Assuming for the sake of argument that the two of them joined a unity ticket tomorrow, how would that “overturn the expressed will of the people” in any way? They each have delegates right now. Going forward, anybody voting for them would be “expressing the will of the people”. WTF?
As for the rest, it’s just arm waving and gas. Seems to me.
I despise the GOPe, but I wish they would push this and get it done. It will be an even bigger loser.
The GOP Establishment THANKS YOU!
The Globalist Elite THANKS YOU!
Who NEEDS the United States of America as A SOVEREIGN COUNTRY anymore?!?
How quaint!
How…shal we say….SENTIMENTAL!
GO Cruz! GO Rubio!
GO Cruz/Rubio…or vice versa!
It doesn’t matter!
As long as the illegal immigration invasion (how queer…I always thought this site was concerned with law and justice…calling itself Legal Insurrection) and the Trans Pacific Trade Deal KEEP RIGHT ON CHUGGING ALONG…
…we won’t have any choice soon, anyway!
And THAT’S JUST HOW THE GLOBAL ELITE WANT IT.
Cruz/Rubio = Filet Mignon/Ebola Soufflé
Not only would this ruin Cruz, the Amnesty fluffers backing Rubio would run in terror from the ticket and probably write in Jorge Ramos/Lindsay Graham.
First, I can’t imagine republicans picking rubio or cruz. Nor do I see them getting coupled together.
However, if Hillary sails into the White House you better believe it has something to do with the republican insiders, thinking they’re great “horse race” pickers.
The only way Hillary sails to the WH is if Trump wins. Polls show he loses to her well outside the margin of error. Cruz and Rubio both either beat her or are within the margin of error.
Trump has alienated, for good, a large segment of the Republican base; his fans have sealed the deal with their horrid behavior on Twitter and on various sites (including this one). Trump’s support is a inches-wide and a mile deep (composed mostly of avid supporters who are often vile and repellent); very very few will be holding their noses and voting for him this year should he win the nomination.
The GOPe has alienated, for good, a large segment of the Republican base; their fans have sealed the deal with their horrid behavior on Twitter and on various sites (including this one). The GOPe’s support is a inches-wide and a mile deep (composed mostly of avid supporters who are often vile and repellent); very very few will be holding their noses and voting for the GOPe candidate this year should he win the nomination.
First I read that Kemberlee was “running all around CPAC to get anti-Trump stuff” (she sounds about 12 years old, wearing saddle shoes) and now this crap? I remember coming to LI to read intelligent analysis, Gone are the days.
I remember you spitting the dummy almost exactly four years ago during the last GOP primaries, scolding the Professor for penning too many Newt-related posts.
Plus ça change…
“It would be easier for the weakest poltroon that lives, to erase himself from existence, than to erase one letter of his name or crimes from the knitted register of Madame Defarge.”
lol 🙂
I think, Amy, you have had too much sun–get a life. You had to go back FOUR years to find a quote? Like I said….intelligent analysis, gone are the days.
It was the first one Google popped up 😀
If Cruz does this he’s permanently tarred with the Rubio Gang of Eight brush. It would be as bad as going with ¡Jeb!.
Cruz is acceptable. Rubio would be worse than Clinton. The Republican majority house and senate could and would resist Clinton. They would be under pressure to go along with Rubio.
Most of these Quislings would be happy to see Clinton, Sanders, Biden — whomever — elected if only it stops Trump and Cruz. That way they get to keep their little political niches, episodically caving in to the Democrats while pretending to be conservatives.
Exactly, and that’s why Cruz wouldn’t do it. Rubio has proven that he can be rolled, actually he wasn’t rolled as much as he actively (not passively) worked to bring about the Gang of Eight, and amnesty. Betraying the grassroots conservatives from Florida (and around the country) the moment he stepped into DC – that’s a character flaw, and a trust issue never to be fixed.
Cruz is cut from an entirely different cloth and is a principled man.
Never the twain shall meet.
Ridiculous. “Magical Thinking” at its silliest.
Though I do have to admit a certain grudging admiration for the sheer absurd brio of this line—
“Our current immigration situation would likely be addressed by a Cruz-Rubio administration to the degree that the issue would no longer be any obstacle for him in 2024.”
Much like a doctor trying to cheer you up by telling you that in a few minutes your arterial hemorrhaging will stop for good.
Actually the karate kid and foam boy have already said the only chance they have is a brokered convention.
Most pundits say the only way to stop Trump at this point is a brokered convention. If it is a brokered convention, it wuill not be any of these guys. It will be Mittens. He has already taken the first step:
http://www.fec.gov/press/press2016/digests/20160101digest.shtml
Wrong link:
http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00431171/1047622/
Sorry, for you few fans of this, facts:
R poll, cruz + Rubio, page 7 doesn’t add up
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2016/images/02/29/rel4a.-.2016.primaries.pdf
Florida, no cigar
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/fl/florida_republican_presidential_primary-3555.html
So someone here thinks putting a secure border no amnesty guy with the path to citizenship guy, both Cubans. Castro is probably drinking Cuba Libre’s at the thought.
What an interesting, bigoted statement!
I rather imagine that Castro is soiling his diaper at the idea of two sons of Cuban emigres coming to power in the US.
Like Hitler during the war thinking about an American administration headed by two German-American boys.
“I rather imagine that Castro is soiling his diaper… ”
Like the thought, true for Cruz, but not for Rubio.
Why does Rubio need to be part of the ticket?
He adds nothing too the ticket, he is too similar to Cruz, & he is still unvetted
Rubio needs to drop out if he cares about stopping Trump. Right now he’s just playing, if I can’t have it, then you can’t have it with everybody else.
I agree with a lot of that, but not the part about similarity.
They are QUITE different.
“They are QUITE different.”
Near 100%
Their only similarity is the wide category called Hispanic and that they are men. One still appears to be a principled man and the other supported the Gang of Eight.
Cruz does not need Rubio. He should pick a true outsider or a long time hardliner on immigration. It might even put him on top when the delegates are counted. At this point nobody is naming veeps because of horsetrading. Wait for a few weeks.
Never gonna happer, Cruz is an outsider and a constitutionalist. Rubio is playing suck-up to the establishment, while still trying to sorta look like an outsider.
Cruz wouldn’t let him work in the mail room.
I can’t see it at all.
But, Rubio/Hillary might have a much better chance.
Together they might make one nature born US citizen.
This is as good as the Romney speech!
#Fail
One last comment on this issue:
Since a few, very few, might have noticed my disdain for Erickson and anything redstate, now perhaps you understand why.
What an imbecile. Cruz would destroy any chance he has by adding Rubio to his ticket. As would trump by the way.
Alternate universe: Erickson is suggesting such in order to do precisely that. Seems more likely to me.
Cruz for President. Then he can appoint Rubio to The Weed Agency.
It’s time for Rubio to drop out, and Cruz should name him as running mate. #Crubio
If Cruz picks him, there will be a Gang of 9.
no.
I think Rubio will have enough on his plate for the next couple days. This kind of thing wouldn’t kill a Democrat these days but his relationships with the Lobbyists will kill most republicans.
Since this can’t have been a secret why are these reports coming out now?