MoJo: The GOP Has a Mad Max Problem

Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz are hurtling toward a chaotic crash as their three-lane road narrows to one.



For the politerati, the 2016 presidential campaign's No. 1 metaphor—and it has already become a cliché—is the highway lane. ... There's been talk of a tea party lane, an Establishment lane, a social conservative lane, a populist lane, and so on. Now that the first three contests of the season have occurred, it's becoming clear that there are, at most, three lanes, and, in what might be bad news for Republicans, those lanes might not merge anytime soon. In fact, there may be concrete barriers between each of them, and that increases the odds of a big, chaotic crash at the point where these lanes must converge.

Here's the quick-and-easy breakdown. There is a social conservative lane, a road for the candidate fancied by the evangelical voters, the part of the GOP base that used to be called the religious right. Sen. Ted Cruz has the wheel here. Ben Carson once had a shot at this crowd and still draws some support from these quarters. But he's faded from serious contention, and Cruz, who campaigns as a godly and courageous conservative, has the natural hold on this bunch. He hasn't rounded up all the evangelical voters.

Rubio has elbowed aside Jeb Bush (who?) and Gov. Chris Christie to claim the Establishment lane (also known as the not-Trump-or-Cruz lane). (H)e's the last non-Trump-or-Cruz standing in the win-place-or-show ranks. The Establishment has to have a horse—as do suburban Republican voters free of Trump fever and not taken by Cruz's fundamentalism. So Rubio is in control here.

The most interesting lane is Trump's. It seems to be a lane all its own. At times, it doesn't seem to be part of the regular GOP highway. ... The Trump bloc appears to be a blend of Perot independent voters (who were attracted to the billionaire's concern about federal spending and the national debt), Reagan Democrats (who were drawn to that conservative's big-stick approach and racially-tinged welfare-bashing), and Buchanan Republicans (who were in synch with the commentator's right-wing populism and America-first nativism).

Back to the original metaphor: There are three cars hurtling toward a one-lane road. If none run out of gas, it won't be pretty.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/trump-rubio-cruz-Republican-lanes-problem

The Mad Max analogy (and picture) are appropriate for the chaotic clown car that is the GOP primary field.