I think you are picking through the entrails to convince me:
1. I am a rube that can't know what you know about politics.
You haven't said anything so far to disabuse me of that notion.
2. Your expertise in splinter groups on the right is the path to the answer you seek to sell.
One of my things is objectivity. I have never been able to lie to myself, I generally look at everything cynically and pessimistically. I'm not trying to sell anything, i'm stating what I see from where I stand.
But I am more of a big picture type, have followed politics since 1960, and your guy Cruz has narrow (but deep) appeal. And people simply don't like him.
I know. I've been saying for months that he won't do as well in the General as would Trump, but that he would still beat Hillary anyway. The key to this election is how horrible of a Candidate Hillary is, not how great of a candidate we have.
He didn't need to appeal to people in the General, he just had to be "Not-Hillary" and that would have been sufficient for him to win. All he had to do was get through the primary, and had Rubio realized he self destructed last year, Cruz would have likely won the primary.
So let me know when you find the answer to keep people from running. I think the starting line this cycle, shows there is no order but is disorder.
Everyone had the same realization. After Obama, and with witch Hillary, virtually every ambitious pol out there saw the Republican ticket as having a natural advantage in this next election. The "black" thing ain't gonna work for Hillary, and the "Woman" thing won't work nearly so well as did the "black" thing. Hillary has an illusion that it will, but even as women go, she's a thoroughly unlikable one.
The primary was so crowded because every one of them knew that if they could just win the primary, they would have mostly clear sailing on to the Presidency. Even Trump felt the time was ripe to run on the Republican ticket.
And a lot of evangelicals may be such, in terms of religion, but NOT in politics. Cruz has four years to convince people to fall in line behind him. He has not shown a strong propensity to create winning coalitions, in the Senate or in the primary elections.
His strategy didn't need it. What his strategy needed was to win the core constituency of the Republican party, (mainly the primary voters) and by the time the General came along, the rest, more moderate members of the party would go "Cruz, I guess."
Cruz has been planning on running for President for a very long time. Everything he did as a Senator was geared toward's endearing himself to the party's primary voters. Had Trump not jumped in, and had Rubio realized he was screwed, Cruz would have cinched it, and he could have worked on his image a bit in an effort to attract the General election voters, but his Ace in the hole was the fact that Hillary is a ugly and hate-filled witch who had a long past of lies, deceit and criminality.
