Well, yes, it would be decisive because it would be so surprising, and it would be surprising because it’s so unlikely. I think if I were Rubio, I’d be pinning my hopes on a slower but steadier path.
A month back I thought that Rubio would win the nomination and perhaps go all the way. Now I am not so sure. I really think Paris/San Bernadino has changed the Republican race. There is an extraordinary amount of rage in the Republican base against Muslims and I think it extends beyond the 25-30% who have supported Trump so far. This pollsays 65% of Republican primary voters support Trump on his Muslim immigration proposal. I think there is a serious possibility Trump will be able to ride this issue and win the nomination.
Nate Silver has an interesting graphic (Venn diagram) he calls The Republican’s Five-Ring Circus. The names adaher mentions are in the “Establishment” ring. (Christie is in the “Moderate” ring but also makes it, barely, into Establishment.)
However Rubio approaches the Tea Party Ring; he is closer to Walker than he is to Kasich. (My big fear of a Rubio Presidency is less how close he is to the Tea Party, but how corrupt and intellectually shallow appears to be – I fear his Presidency would resemble GWB’s, but be much worse.)
Note that Trump is missing from the graphic. I guess Nate had no idea where to put him. 
We did an elimination-style game back in June. Pataki just edged out Kasich, with Rubio in third place.
Which only goes to show that we’re not what you’d call representative of the general populace (and certainly not of Republicans).
I’d put Trump at the intersection of Libertarian and Tea Party.
I’d say he’s got a foot among the moderates and a foot in the Tea Party. He’s not conservative at all when it comes to tax and budget policy.
I’m not convinced his supporters know or care what his tax and budget policy are - it’s far more about the intersection of a cult of personality and broad bigotry than any substantive policies.
IIRC (I don’t have a link – this is from memory), in the later versions of the “five-ring circus” graphic, Nate puts Trump in the bottom right corner outside of any of the ‘rings’.
Got your link right here.
His tax plan would cost in the neighborhood of $10T over a decade, and primarily benefit the rich. Sounds plenty conservative to me.
From that graphic, one would expect Perry, with appeal for three of the five rings, to be the front-runner. One would also expect a lot more candidates positioning themselves in one of those intersection points. It’s not happening, though.
Perry would have been the frontrunner given his resume and ideological positioning but then came the problem of actually campaigning, something he is extremely bad at.
Huckabee is a guy who actually could be the nominee if he wasn’t so focused on one part of the party: the evangelicals. He was a fairly moderate governor of Arkansas and he actually is a talented campaigner and speaker.
We only really have one good choice, and that’s John Kasich. All the others are badly flawed: Rubio is not ready to be President, Christie has ethical issues hanging over him, and Bush is, well, a Bush. I think that if we went into the election with John Kasich as our nominee, beating Clinton would be a relative cakewalk. But no, we gotta make it interesting.
At this point Kasich getting the nomination is about as likely me marrying Elle Fanning.
It’s not THAT unlikely, but a lot of things have to fall into place for him. One of them almost certainly will: The year before an election is always the time that Republicans salivate over hard right candidates. Once the New Year comes they start thinking about winning, and Kasich has an electability argument in his favor.
I’m sure that’s why he’s at a 2.2% average in the RCP poll average. This is not Romney 2012 or McCain 2008-those guys were even if not in first place were actually polling in the two digits.
The Republican primaries this year is going to be a Havana mayoral election-two Cubans and a billionaire casino owner.
Will there be any traction to the “Rubio has a love child” rumors?
Hopefully-he’s enough of a pretty boy to attract the floozies.
My chances for various Republican nominees:
TRUMP-40%
Cruz-30%
Rubio-25%
Other-5%
Have you considered asking adaher to write a recommendation for you?
Maybe you’d have a better shot at being one of Elle King’s exes and oh’s. 