Senator Marco Rubio has suspended his campaign.  Although I have anticipated this for a few weeks, now, it still hurt on Tuesday night to listen to his concession speech. The question is: what now? Who do I now endorse for the highest office in the land? Now that I am no longer a Republican, I feel freer to look outside of the party ranks for the person I believe would make the best president.  After thinking it through, however, I have come to a simple conclusion: I am endorsing anyone except Trump. Each of the non-Trump candidates has strengths, but also some key weaknesses that prevent me from giving a full endorsement. Let us start with the Democrats, for once.

Hillary Clinton
Strengths: Aside from maybe John Kasich, Hillary has the lengthiest resume of any candidate still running. She is the more moderate and pragmatic of the two Democrats and has the clear path to the Democratic nomination, including a fresh string of victories.

Weaknesses: Hillary’s biggest weakness is that no one trusts her and most everyone prefers someone else. She also has the clouds of scandal hanging over her and a reputation as a pragmatist is a double-edged sword: it makes her look like an unprincipled calculating politician.

Verdict: I will vote for her in November if it looks like Virginia will fall to Trump.

Bernie Sanders
Strengths: He appears to be an honest guy who genuinely believes what he says.

Weaknesses: He is way too far to the left for me to consider voting for him except in the direst situation. I think his sled full of “gifts” will bankrupt the country, as a nation cannot tax itself into prosperity.

Verdict: Same as Hillary. If he somehow wins the nomination (which he will not), I would vote for him if I thought it could prevent Trump from winning Virginia.

Now for the Republicans…

John Kasich
Strengths: He is a conservative who could actually win in November and unite the country. He has a sterling resume and matches the positive tone that Rubio’s campaign had.  Certainly of the remaining candidates, I think Kasich would make the best president.

Weaknesses: Like Marco Rubio, Kasich will find that the Republican Party is in no mood to be positive. Fire and brimstone dominate the current GOP climate and Kasich appears to represent their most hated of enemies: the GOP “Establishment.” Kasich is also mathematically incapable of securing the nomination before the convention, which now apparently means he should not pursue the nomination at the convention because it would anger Trump and Cruz supporters.

Verdict: I do not think Kasich will win the nomination, but I think he should stay in and try to win contests in the Mid-Atlantic and Rust Belt to siphon delegates away from Trump. If he somehow wins the nomination at the RNC, I will happily support him in any way that I can.

Ted Cruz
Strengths: He is the purest conservative still running and has the strongest claim to be the anti-Trump candidate behind whom conservatives should rally. He is the candidate who can tap into the type of anger that Trump champions, but orient it towards more conservative ends than Trump.

Weaknesses: I have detailed, at length, the problems I have with Cruz, as a person. I think he is arrogant, unlikable, untrustworthy, combative, rude, disrespectful, and I believe he has a tendency to exaggerate the truth. I also believe he has a tendency to view every political situation as a prisoner’s dilemma- where the rational move is for him to defect and stab his allies in the back. I think that, as president, Cruz’s past tactical betrayals would come back to haunt him. I also dislike the apocalyptic theme of Cruz’s campaign, in terms of the overly-religious themes trumpeted by people like Glenn Beck and Cruz’s father.  It is one thing to openly profess a strong faith in God, like Marco Rubio often did, but another to essentially invoke end times theology and act like Cruz has some kind of divine right to rule. In sum, I dislike Senator Cruz as a person, across a number of dimensions.

But more than all that, my biggest problem with Cruz is that I think that while he is quite willing to try to defeat Trump, I do not believe he has a sincere desire to vanquish Trumpism from the Republican Party.  Trump’s supporters represent the kind of base Cruz had targeted before Trump entered the race- angry lower and middle class white males who feel that the elites in Washington have betrayed them over and over. I believe that is why Cruz was so reluctant to attack Trump all those months; he simply believed he could win over Trump’s supporters once someone else destroyed Trump’s candidacy.  It also explains why he is both denouncing the idea of a brokered convention and why he is so reluctant to not support Trump if Trump is the nominee (unlike Kasich and Rubio). Cruz, in other words, does not seek to cleanse the Republican Party of Trumpism, but rather, he seeks to harness it and wield it for himself. It is ironic, the man who spent years attacking his colleagues in the Senate for not being conservative enough has repeatedly held his punches against the guy who is bringing angry, unhinged liberals into the party. Personally, I would rather see the “establishment” retake control in Cleveland, drive Trump’s supporters out of the party and lose to Clinton in November than “win” with a coalition of angry white nationalists. Cruz represents a diluted version of Trumpism that is far more conservative than Trump, but depends on a noxious and obnoxious coalition of voters that, frankly, the GOP should eschew.

Verdict: If Cruz is nominated, Hillary wins in November. I do not think Cruz’s strategy of running up the score in states like Oklahoma will help him win Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. That said, he should stay in the race and try to siphon delegates away from Trump in western and plains states that have not yet voted. To earn my support beyond just a grudging, vain vote in November (he is FAR from my top choice out of all the candidates who ran this cycle), he would have to expressly denounce Trumpism, humble himself and try to rebuild bridges with MAINSTREAM conservatives (i.e. those who do not share his mentality of burning everything down).  I think Cruz should try to reach some kind of agreement with Kasich that they stay out of each other’s territory and work together to deprive Trump of delegates and then leave it to the delegates to pick the party’s nominee in Cleveland.

Conclusion
Any of the four remaining candidates would be better than Trump.  I think Kasich would make the best president of the four, but I also do not think he can win the nomination. I think Cruz can win the nomination, but I do not believe for one second that, even with an indictment of Clinton, he could defeat her, and I doubt his commitment to purging Trumpism from the Republican Party. In a normal year, I would sooner munch on glass than vote for Clinton, but if it comes down to it, I will vote for her in November (same with Sanders). So, ultimately, I will not endorse one particular candidate, but I will support the efforts of anyone who is in a good position to defeat Trump.  In the interim, that means that both Cruz and Kasich have my support, as I think it would be better for the country to not have Trump on the ballot in November. If Cruz can stop Trump by winning the nomination, outright, so be it.  If Kasich winning states like Pennsylvania leads to a brokered convention that stops Trump, then I whole-heartedly support Kasich’s efforts.  If Trump is nominated, I hope the Democrat wins.  Politics is the art of the possible and I am not one to let the perfect become the enemy of the good. The election of any of these four individuals would be so much better for the country than the election of Trump, so I will support their efforts to defeat Trump.  For now, I wish success for both Cruz and Kasich, and I hope that they can work together to save the country from the national humiliation of having Donald Trump at the top of a major party ticket and the terrifying thought of having Donald Trump sit in the Oval Office.

I have been a Republican ever since I can remember having an interest in politics, around the time when I was in 5th grade, which happened to be around the time when al-Qaeda attacked America on September 11th. Throughout the years since, I have remained a Republican for various reasons.  In my middle school years, I was a strong social conservative and supporter of President Bush’s War on Terrorism. In high school, I became more of a fiscal conservative and in college and grad school, I have been a social moderate, fiscal conservative, and somewhat of a moderate with regard to foreign policy and national security. The GOP has always been my ideological home.

But today, I am leaving the Republican Party.  I may well join the Libertarian Party or I may simply remain a moderate conservative independent who is part of the anti-Trump resistance. But today, it became clear to me that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee because anti-Trump conservatives are incapable of working together to defeat him.  In order to stop Trump, we must deny him the delegates in Florida and Ohio.  Marco Rubio’s team told his supporters to vote for John Kasich in Ohio in order to make this happen. And how did the other sides respond? Kasich’s spokesperson sneered at this effort and Justin Amash, a functional Cruz surrogate, did likewise. Oh, and PACs associated with Cruz continue to try to hammer Rubio in his home state.  Rubio is playing to stop Trump, Cruz and Kasich are playing for themselves. As such, Trump is going to win the nomination.

I cannot, in good conscience, be associated with the party of Trumpism.  Trumpism represents the worst of American politics.  It is a message of anger and no substance. It is a cult of personality behind a man who probably does not have a single political principle, but knows how to mimic the message his supporters want to hear. He is a talented entertainer and knows what his audience wants to hear. Scarier than Trump, however, are his supporters. They are angry at everything, especially people who are not white.  They abandon reason and blindly support anything that comes out of Trump’s mouth. They are, in essence, the mob that the Founders feared and they have found their champion in Donald Trump.  There is a reason the Founders created the Electoral College and depended upon the large size of the American republic for picking presidents- they wanted to protect us against this sort of demagogue.  Trumpism is a cancerous message bereft of any actual policies, but xenophobic enough to ensure that the Republicans drive away non-white voters for the next generation. Any politician who endorses Trump will be enabling this cancer and I will not vote for any Republican who kisses Trump’s rings.  They are, in essence, Vichy Republicans who think that if they cozy up to Trump, they can get the scraps off his table or they can somehow work with him and maybe make him less of a monster.  They are selling their souls to a madman who cannot be trusted and has no respect for the Constitution.  If their careers are worth more than their souls and principles, so be it.  I, however, will not redefine conservatism to mean “Trumpism” and I will not make any kind of pact with Trump.

 It is possible, perhaps, that Trump does not win the nomination.  But even if Ted Cruz is the nominee, the party will have to cleanse itself of Trumpism before I am willing to return to it. This may mean doing dirty tricks at the convention that drive away the supporters he has brought in to the party. It is worth losing their support, so that the party can prove that it is not the party of white supremacy and can begin building new coalitions with minority voters (which the GOP will have to do since whites will not be the majority indefinitely).
           
Even if Cruz is the nominee, he will have to earn my vote in November.  Ideologically, I am probably closest to Kasich, but he, Rubio, and Cruz are all so conservative it really does not make a difference. Cruz’s tone, however, is what makes him so much more exclusionary than Rubio or Kasich. Cruz is only running on behalf of his “courageous conservatives” and has shown no desire to build bridges with anyone to his left. If he somehow wins the nomination, Hillary will destroy him in swing states and Cruz’s supporters will blame “the establishment” for not supporting him hard enough (just like Ken Cuccinelli’s supporters blamed Bill Bolling and the Virginia GOP for not adequately supporting his disastrous run for governor), rather than Cruz for staking out such hardline stances.  My other problem with Cruz is that I see him as a backstabbing Machiavellian ideologue.  The 2013 Government Shutdown is the perfect example of this.  Cruz launched an ideological crusade that had no chance of success and was able to blame the party leaders for abandoning the cause, even though they had no leverage and no hope of securing anything more than a few face-saving concessions.  Cruz was able to use that to show that no one else in Congress could be trusted and he is the only “pure conservative,” which gave him a nice fundraising boost from those who do not seem capable of understanding checks and balances.  In the current race, the fact that he has not expressly told his supporters in Florida to vote for Rubio just proves my point: he would rather lose and prove his ideological purity than build any bridges with those slightly less conservative than he. He is a much better choice than Trump, but he makes it so difficult to like him. And I do not think he really wants my vote in November or my support right now. Despite how conservative I am, he would still see me as part of the “mushy middle.” As such, the best Cruz can hope for from me is that I would reluctantly cast my vote in vain on his behalf.
           
The GOP in 2015 had such a great opportunity.  Between Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, and a few other rising stars, it looked like the party finally had the chance to not only win the White House, but perhaps build some new coalitions, as well.  But Hurricane Trump ruined it all.  Even if he somehow wins the White House in November, he will destroy the GOP in the long-term. The party will have no chance with Hispanics (the fastest-growing demographic) or Millennials if Trumpism defines the GOP. With Marco Rubio, in particular, the party had its best, most articulate conservative candidate since 1984. Rubio has a positive, optimistic vision for this country that should have ushered the GOP into a new era, one defined by such luminous stars as Nikki Haley, Trey Gowdy, Mia Love, Susana Martinez, and Ben Sasse.  Instead, the party has elected to go down the path of anger and insanity.  If Trump wins, then the Republican Party will have been destroyed by a con man.  If Cruz wins, the party will survive, but suffer catastrophic losses in November. All of this because Rubio’s positive message failed to resonate with an angry electorate.
           
Consequently, I have had enough.  I am through with trying to convince Trump's supporters that he cannot be trusted and is playing them all for fools.  I am through trying to show Cruz's supporters that “courageous conservatives” are not a majority in this country and he will lose in a landslide to Hillary Clinton because he will not do well in swing districts.  I really like Rubio and I hope he resurrects his political career after this, but that’s not enough to keep me blindly loyal to this party.  I hope the GOP drives out Trumpism and tries to form new coalitions that can revitalize it and return it to the optimistic party that Reagan created.  But if they cannot, then I am happy to see it crumble under the weight of its own anger and hostility so that a new right-leaning party can take its place- one that renounces white nationalism and embraces the principles of freedom and statesmanship rather than authoritarianism and demagoguery.
           
​ Until then, so long and thanks for all the fish, Republican Party! I will continue to support candidates trumpeting liberty and embodying statesmanship without you. 

tWith primary season underway, the Republican field has shrunk to 4 finalists, Trump and his 3 main opponents (Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich). Cruz has won most of the contests Trump has not won, and because of that, his supporters are calling on Rubio to drop out and accept the VP slot of the GOP ticket beneath Cruz. The logic is simple: offer Rubio supporters (who range from the very conservative to the very moderate) a bone and he can consolidate support as the anti-Trump candidate. I have several reservations, however, about this plan. 

First, the best way to stop Trump right now is for Kasich, Cruz, and Rubio to form a gentleman’s agreement (a cartel, if you will) where they will stay out states in which they are not winning and encourage their supporters to back the top anti-Trump choice. Especially in winner-take-all states, like Florida and Ohio, it is self-defeating for Cruz to campaign hard in these states and ensure a Trump victory.  If Trump wins those states, it is hard to see him not gaining the delegates he needs before the convention. And if Cruz tries to knock out either Kasich or Rubio, it is likely that the other anti-Trump opponent gains the lion’s share of the other candidate’s supporters.  If Cruz does not stab Kasich or Rubio in the back, he might be more acceptable to those supporters in the event he wins a brokered convention. Cruz already has a reputation for dirty campaign tricks and he would be wise not to enhance that reputation by foolishly undercutting his allies. In other words, Cruz is now part of a cartel, whether he likes it or not, and if he defects, it will only be worse for him in the long-run.

Second, it is difficult to imagine how being Cruz’s running mate benefits Rubio.  Rubio has the party backing and support right now and if he cannot win the nomination with such broad support, that could be the end of his national-level ambitions, at least in the short-term.  He will be regarded as a bust and a joke who could not fulfill his seemingly-unlimited potential.  I think his best path would be to seek the Florida Governorship in 2018 and run for President again in 2024 as a second-term Florida Governor, older and more experienced.  Conversely, accepting the VP slot on Cruz’s ticket would mean that Rubio would be forever tied to what will surely be a disastrous November result. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the last person elected president who had the VP slot on a losing ticket in a previous election (look at the illustrious careers of John Edwards, Sarah Palin, Joe Lieberman, Jack Kemp, Dan Quayle, Lloyd Bentsen, Geraldine Ferraro, Walter Mondale, and Nelson Rockefeller after losing a general election as the VP candidate). So, in short, accepting this consolation prize could doom Marco Rubio’s political future more than if he returns to Florida and rebuilds his career and prestige down there.

Third, Rubio does not add much to Cruz’s ticket for a general election.  Yes, he might win Florida for Cruz, but that still leaves Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania (and a few other states) as major question marks.  To even have a chance at winning swing and moderate states, I think Cruz would have to pick an accomplished moderate-to-liberal woman to offset some of Hillary Clinton’s key advantages. Some names that come to mind include: Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Condoleezza Rice (California).  These women would quell some of the concerns even moderately-conservative Republicans have about the fiery ideologue, and might help Cruz with independents and moderate Democrats. Although Rubio would be somewhat beneficial to Cruz's ticket, a ticket of two young southern male conservative Cuban senators seems a bit redundant. I just do not trust that the marginal benefits of having Rubio on the ticket would best the benefits of adding Collins, Murkowski, or Rice.

In conclusion, I have doubts about the wisdom of a Cruz/Rubio ticket. Although they have worked well as allies against Trump in the last couple of debates, I have some serious reservations about Cruz’s ability to defeat Hillary Clinton and the impact that it will have on Marco Rubio’s career. To win a general election, Cruz has to pick someone in the center who can offset some of Hillary’s key advantages (experience, gender, and relatively moderate positions) and Cruz’s biggest weaknesses (such as his ideological positioning, experience, age, and desire to burn Washington to the ground).  Even though Rubio would help Cruz in this regard, someone like Susan Collins would do a better job at placating the center and neutralizing some of Cruz’s other problems. And in the shorter term, I am not sure a Cruz/Rubio ticket would be enough to stop Trump before the Convention.  Before Rubio accepts any kind of deal, Cruz is going to tell us how exactly he plans to win the swing states in November and how Rubio would factor into this.  Cruz and Rubio would also have to bury any hatchets that still exist between them (such as Cruz distorting Rubio's record on gun rights and Planned Parenthood). All in all, this seems like an unnecessary Hail Mary that Cruz probably would not honor if he got the nomination.

On Tuesday, we in the Super Tuesday states go to the polls. As always, I implore everyone who is registered to go and do their civic duty and vote. The only way our democratic republic can function is if the voices of citizens are heard.  But I want to go one step further and implore my fellow Virginians and other Super Tuesday-voting Republicans to cast your vote for Marco Rubio.

Senator Rubio is our last, best hope to put a true conservative into the White House next year.  Ideologically, there is hardly any space between him and Senator Cruz.  Both men are conservatives on every issue (much more conservative than I am, to be honest), with only the sticky issue of immigration giving them the slightest ideological distinction.  Either one of them would be the most conservative nominee since Goldwater. But where they truly differ are on tactics and the tone of their message.  Senator Rubio, from the first day of his campaign has spread his conservative message in a unifying, calm tone that combines nuanced policy positions with compassion and optimism.  Rubio, in other words, has emulated Ronald Reagan’s ability to articulate and communicate a bold conservative message that can unite the country.  Consequently, he can win in November. Senator Cruz, however, has made it quite clear that he is only campaigning on behalf of so-called “courageous conservatives.” While he has run an efficient and, for the most part, disciplined primary campaign, Cruz’s plan of “destroying the mushy middle” effectively dooms him in the general election and his propensity to spread falsehoods about his opponents is harming his primary campaign.  Certainly of the two of them, Rubio is the candidate with the best shot of winning the White House this November.

I turn now to Donald Trump. Quite frankly, it is an embarrassment that he has stayed in the race this long. He is a man who has the shallowest possible understanding of policy and the vaguest “vision” for this country.  He is a man who has been shown to admire the bold tactics of tyrants (Kim Jong-un, Putin, and Communist China) and willingly embrace the support of white supremacists.  Social conservatives should not trust a man who defends Planned Parenthood, is on his third trophy wife, and tried to make his money through the ever-shady casino business.  Fiscal conservatives should be leery of a man who defends government bailouts and supports progressive taxation.  And national security conservatives should not trust the government to a man who has become, in essence, a 9/11 Truther.  He is incoherent on foreign policy (as Tom Nichols shows) and looks like a complete novice compared to the depth of Marco Rubio’s answers on foreign policy. Trump, in short, is no conservative by any contemporary American understanding of the term. At most, he hearkens back to the racially conservative (racist) Dixiecrats of the Civil Rights Era.

Trump is the embodiment of everything the Founding Fathers sought to constrain- the populist demagogue.  The Founders, being quite well-versed in the political theory of giants like Plato, knew that the rise of a “champion of the people” would inevitably result in tyranny.  Thus, they tried to control the method of election and the scope of the president’s powers once in office.  The Electoral College, for example, was created largely to ensure that the passions of the masses would not give the country someone like Trump by entrusting the election of the president to a group of wise, yet unaffiliated electors who could not all be corrupted at once.  As for the scope of his powers, the Founders devised the great system of checks and balances to prevent the president from becoming a king- who would most easily rise up in a decadent democracy with the backing of the passionate “people.”  Trump fits this bill perfectly. He has the backing of the angry and passionate masses who have sacrificed all rationality for the authoritarian promises he has given them. If elected, he will try to destroy the system of checks and balances even more than President Obama. Anyone who has complained about executive aggrandizement under Obama cannot in good conscience vote for Trump- he is a ruthless businessman who is used to getting his way and bossing his subordinates around.  He will not recognize Congress’ co-equal role and will toss aside the Constitution to get what he wants (which may not even be “conservative;” his true preferences are hard to decipher; I view them as essentially random).  Finally, I think President Trump would ultimately stab his supporters in the back.  He has made it clear that he does not respect his supporters or their intelligence and that he understands that he has a cult following that serve as useful dupes on his quest for power. Trump cannot be trusted with power and if given such power will attempt to destroy the system that has served us well since 1787. For a demagogue like Trump, the Constitution can only be seen as a useless impediment to power.

The aforementioned represent only the surface of the many criticisms I have of Trump.  For a myriad of reasons, I will leave the Republican Party if Donald Trump is the nominee.  I cannot in good conscience support a man antithetical to everything I believe.  The Republican Party should embody the spirit of a republic- which means that is ruled by thoughtful, prudent, and wise guardians of the public interest; men and women like George Washington.  Incidentally, I believe the president should also embody all of these qualities. Donald Trump is the opposite of this spirit in every conceivable way- he is vulgar, impulsive, thoughtless, rash, and bellicose.

Pragmatically speaking, I also think Trump will do irreparable harm to the Republican Party, both in the short-term and the long-term as the nominee.  In the short-term, we will lose many talented individuals in swing Senate seats (Toomey, Ayotte, Portman, etc…) and in other races, as well.  In the long-term, the Republican brand will (completely justifiably) be associated with nativism and white supremacy because so much of Trump’s core support is coming from racist individuals.  And if Trump’s immigration plan is ever implemented, the GOP will NEVER be competitive among the rapidly-growing Hispanic population, leaving the GOP in the position of being nothing more than a permanent opposition party. In short, if the Republicans nominate Trump, it should bring about a divorce between the GOP and mainstream conservatives.  A new party will have to form, in its place, that does not give a platform for Trumpism and other angry, hateful or fearful doctrines. If Trump is nominated, the Republicans deserve not only to lose, but to collapse as the party of white supremacy. At the very least, I will not return to the party until the cancer of Trumpism is thoroughly eradicated.

Fellow Republicans, I am begging you in the strongest possible terms to turn away from Trump while we still can.  On Super Tuesday, we can send a message that the Republican Party is not Donald Trump’s party. Even if you refuse to vote for Rubio because of the “Gang of Eight,” do not give your vote to Trump. But even if we do not succeed in stopping him on Tuesday, do not give in to hatred or fear of the Democrats.  It is not worth it to make a Faustian Bargain with Trump- he cannot be trusted on anything. It is better to go down in a blaze of glory than to cynically abandon all principles and tie your fate to a con artist (here’s looking at you, Chris Christie!).  I will never support any Republican who endorses Trump because that singular act proves that the politician is either unprincipled or strategically foolish (which are about equally disqualifying.) I would rather see Congressional Republicans valiantly stand against Hillary Clinton than try to work with Donald Trump. There is nothing to be gained with Donald Trump in the White House, but everything to lose. I whole-heartedly endorse Senator Rubio, but also the #NeverTrump movement. This Super Tuesday, let us shift the tide with our votes for the good of the Republican Party and the good of America.