No Matter Who Wins the GOP Nomination, Hillary's Going to Have a Fight On Her Hands

It's going to be virtually 50-50 heading into November 2016. All the usual indicators of campaign success will be in play, especially voter mobilization. Ignore polls that show Hillary beating Donald Trump. Conservatives will rally to his flag if it means the crushing Democrat power.

In any case, from Jonathan Last, at the Weekly Standard:

Tuesday's debate wasn't boring, exactly. There was a good deal of substance and some demolition derby, too. Also, there was some real news toward the end when Trump doubled down on staying in the Republican party and not running a third-party candidacy if someone else is the nominee. But I don't know that the debate altered the strategic balance of power in this race in any meaningful way.

But it did get me thinking about the general election. To my mind, the most likely nominees, in descending order of probability, are Rubio, Cruz, and Trump. And watching them, it struck me that the consensus views about each of their chances against Hillary Clinton may not be correct.

Let's start with Rubio, who remains my favorite to win the nomination. (And please understand that I mean "favorite" in the Vegas sense, i.e. "the guy with best odds to win"; not "the guy I want to win.") The theoretical poll match-ups show Rubio with a slim lead over Clinton. I think this vastly understates his potential. Watch Rubio on the debate stage and he looks like a creature genetically engineered in a lab to crush HRC. By dint of his youth and energy, he turns her greatest strengths into weaknesses. He's a devastatingly good debater. As he showed Tuesday night, he can take a punch. And his political instincts are brilliant.

Have a look at Rubio's first moment of the night. The debate opened with a question about Trump's Muslim immigration/visa pause, which Jeb Bush scoffed at, over and over, as "not serious." Wolf Blitzer then turned to Rubio and noted that a majority of Republican voters supported the idea. It was an invitation to pile on Trump and disavow a "crazy" position. Instead of disavowing it, Rubio explained why Republican voters support it and then shunted the blame onto Barack Obama:

Well, I understand why they feel that way, because this president hasn't kept us safe. The problem is we had an attack in San Bernardino. And we were paying attention to the most important issue we have faced in a decade since 9/11, and then all the talk was about this proposal, which isn't going to happen.

But this is what's important to do is we must deal frontally with this threat of radical Islamists, especially from ISIS. This is the most sophisticated terror group that has ever threatened the world or the United States of America. They are actively recruiting Americans. The attacker in San Bernardino was an American citizen, born and raised in this country. He was a health inspector; had a newborn child and left all that behind to kill 14 people.

We also understand that this is a group that's growing in its governance of territory. It's not just Iraq and Syria. They are now a predominant group in Libya. They are beginning to pop up in Afghanistan. They are increasingly involved now in attacks in Yemen. They have Jordan in their sights.

This group needs to be confronted with serious proposals. And this is a very significant threat we face. And the president has left us unsafe. He spoke the other night to the American people to reassure us. I wish he hadn't spoken at all. He made things worse. Because what he basically said was we are going to keep doing what we're doing now, and what we are doing now is not working.

If Rubio wins the nomination, I suspect he'll beat Clinton like a drum. A 7-point, realigning victory would not be out of the question and Clinton's best-case scenario would be a narrow win eeked out by the smallest margins.

With Ted Cruz, current polls and conventional wisdom suggest that Clinton would have a much easier time: That Cruz is too conservative for mainstream voters; that his personality is too abrasive. I tend to agree with this, to a point. But watching him in these debates it's clear that Cruz isn't Barry Goldwater. He's not looking to run a capital-C Conservative campaign in order to prove a point. He wants to win and his ambition and strategic cleverness make him perfectly willing to be ambiguous when he believes it necessary.

His general election beta window might be shifted down a couple points from Rubio's, but I doubt he would be an easy out for Clinton.

Which brings us to Trump...

A great essay.

And keep reading for the Trump analysis.