Don’t let the media tell you that the Tea Party isn’t relevant anymore. Have you taken a look at the two men who could be the last ones standing at the end of the GOP presidential nomination contest? Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. When they came to the Senate, they came in as Tea Party heroes.
Now, let’s be clear: Rubio and Cruz have chosen different strategic paths once they came to DC. Rubio decided to play ball with GOP leaders, didn’t join the Tea Party Caucus and tried to work with democrats on immigration. Those moves didn’t quite work out and it branded him to a degree as someone who now doesn’t have the Tea Party shine he once did. But make no mistake: Rubio’s core is solid. He knows what he believes and he’s not a big government conservative even though libertarians like Rand Paul might try and paint him as such.
As for Ted Cruz, he went the opposite route. Mr. Cruz came to Washington with a desire to shake things up. Whether that meant shutting down the government, calling out GOP leadership and plotting strategy with House Freedom Caucus members, Cruz did it his way (Cue the Frank Sinatra music. If you’re under 50, Google “My Way”).
So how will it all shake out? I think it’s pretty clear that in the spring, if it comes down to Rubio vs. Cruz, Rubio may have the advantage going into the showdown because he’s going to start getting all the big GOP endorsements like Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, etc. The establishment will start to coalesce around Rubio and the media will creative a narrative that this is a done deal. Cruz will somehow need to galvanize millions of conservatives who have never voted before to get out to the polls and back him because the GOP establishment wing will do everything they can to bring him down and not get a whiff of that GOP nomination.
All of that still needs to play out and with Trump and Carson around, we may be getting ahead of ourselves. But suffice to say that if the nominee is Cruz or Rubio, it’s a Tea Party victory because both of these candidates are constitutional conservatives at heart. Cruz may look like the stronger of the two from that perspective but I’ve spent enough time with Rubio to know he’s solid at the core.