Donald Trump at Regent University in Virginia Beach on February 24. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
A dozen dropped-out candidates, millions of dollars, and a seemingly endless number of prime-time debates after it began, the Republican Party's brutal presidential nomination has finally entered its penultimate phase. There are only a few viable candidates left in Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz; now, on Super Tuesday, GOP primary voters across 12 states will decide who actually has a mathematical shot at the nomination.
In other words, March is a month of reckoning for the Republican Party: It's when the GOP gulps one last time before heading into the general election. And, at Thursday night's CNN/Telemundo debate in Houston, all eyes will be on the man who has emerged as the protagonist of the surreal primary season: Trump.
Coming off consecutive wins in Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, Trump has made this presidential race his to lose—a reality that, thanks to hard math of delegate counts, is becoming harder and harder to ignore. The only good news for anti-Trump Republicans is that with Jeb Bush out, they can all line up behind Rubio. The young senator from Florida is the Republican establishment's last hope at stopping the Trump train from barreling into Washington, and he will have to take him on directly at the debate, rather than ignoring him, which is mostly what he's done in the past.
That could work out for Rubio in two ways.
First, if he's successful, he could come out of the debate looking like the adult renegade: the person who knows politics but still shuns its practice—anti-Washington but somehow still presidential enough to live in DC's most famous residence. He could really hit Trump on his impossible immigration plan (this debate is specifically focused on Latino issues) and boost up his credentials as a Cuban immigrant's son—a game of identity politics that Rubio will need to harness to survive.
By doing so, the attack could also help deliver the finishing blow to Ted Cruz, who has finished in third place the last two primaries. If it turns into a two-man show Thursday night, Rubio has at least a shot at routing Cruz on Super Tuesday and coming out as the only one with a chance of unseating the big-mouthed billionaire.
But there is another possibility. In the debate leading up to the New Hampshire primary, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie made Marco Rubio look like a walking, talking Roomba, sucking up and spitting out soundbites left and right. That led, maybe directly, to an embarrassing fifth-place finish in that primary.
Until this point, Trump has barely gone after Marco. And Trump is, like, a Hulk Hogan version of Chris Christie: meaner, tougher, and with a professional wrestler's instinct for the spotlight. Just look at some of the shit he said to Jeb over the past few months: "weak," "stiff," "loser," etc. How is Rubio, who has a known problem with becoming anxious, going to handle that?
Ted Cruz has his own problems. He's always needed evangelicals and social conservatives to come out in great numbers to have a chance at the presidency, but excluding his Iowa victory, those folks have gone for Trump instead. His last hope is his home state of Texas, but one state can't win you the election.
So, at the debate—and, ultimately, on Super Tuesday—Cruz will be looking to regain some shred of momentum at the true anti-Establishment candidate in the race. In order to do so, expect him to target Trump and Rubio at all costs, with really nothing to lose. He'll fire away on immigration, in one final attempt to come off as the craziest guy on stage who still can be trusted to get shit done.
Then there's Ohio Governor John Kasich. According to Politico, the GOP elite has told Kasich to drop out and give his support to Rubio. And it seems as if this kind of talk has gotten into Kasich's head: At an event earlier this week, the dude admitted, "I don't know if my purpose is to be president," when asked if he'd go after Trump on Thursday night. At this point, he has to be wondering if his purpose is to be vice president; if that's his play, he may not want to attack the person he could hypothetically be running with.
Ben Carson will also be there, but no one knows why. He's fallen behind both in the polls and actual votes to the point that it's nearly impossible to imagine him being president, but he refuses to give up. The reasons he has are mysterious, but in what's been the most bizarre Republican primary campaign in recent memory, what's one more oddity?
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