Jac VerSteeg: Political timing favors Marco Rubio

It’s “Crazy Peak” time for Republican presidential candidates. At the moment, that favors two candidates with Florida ties: Donald Trump and Ben Carson. When the peaks flatten, as Trump’s might already be doing, two other Floridians – Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio – will benefit. But Rubio will benefit more than Bush.

The “Crazy Peak” phenomenon is when crazy candidates enjoy a peak in the polls. Think Mike Huckabee winning the Iowa caucuses in 2008. Think Rick Santorum winning the Iowa caucuses in 2012.

Their fate makes you wonder: Who the heck wants to win Iowa in 2016?

Donald Trump and Ben Carson do. And the polls show them at the top. But if Republicans are to have any hope of winning the national election, they will need to settle on a less crazy nominee.

Not only that, they need to settle on a less crazy nominee for vice president. John McCain probably had little chance to win in 2008, given George W. Bush’s blunders in Iraq and crashing of the economy. But he sealed his loss when he chose Sarah Palin to appeal to the wingnut segments of his party and alienated everyone else.

Mitt Romney made the same mistake in 2012 when he chose Paul Ryan to share the ticket. It’s amusing (and/or scary) that Ryan now is considered a moderate. In 2012, his radical budget ideas – which included an overhaul of entitlements that many feared would privatize services, slash benefits and raise the eligibility ages – bled votes away from Romney.

Crazy elements of the Republican Party might argue that the mistake was nominating McCain instead of Huckabee and Romney instead of Santorum. Right. Keep thinking like that. Nominate Trump. Nominate Carson. See what happens.

So, when Republican voters decide they want a more electable candidate, they will turn to someone like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio. There could be a lengthy battle, but Rubio is likely to prevail in the long run. Jeb’s greatest strength is his last name, but it’s an even greater burden. Jeb’s disastrous handling of his brother’s negative legacy has made it worse.

How disappointing it must be for the Bush folks to realize that the more money they spent getting his message out, the less support polls found among potential voters. Their planned Shock and Awe turned into Shucks and Ahhhhh! Now, Jeb has radically cut back on operations to save money and is focusing on the early primaries. But … as Huckabee and Santorum demonstrated, success in early primaries is not magic.

Rubio, on the other hand, has several things going for him. One huge benefit is that he has not run for president before. (Neither has Jeb, but his name makes it seem as though he has.) As I have mentioned before in columns, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all won the presidency on their first try.

Rubio also is lucky not to be at the top of the polls right now. When you are leading in the polls, the media pay far more attention to everything you say and do. That’s the down side of the free publicity leading candidates get. At least, it’s a downside when you say the kinds of things that Trump and Carson say. (Get the Mexicans to build a border wall; if the Jews had been armed, they could have foiled the Holocaust.)

Rubio at the moment is coasting along. The extent of his rivalry with Jeb is a bigger issue than, say, his hawkish foreign policy positions that could get Americans entangled in more foreign wars and his economic policy, which is warmed-over trickle-down foolishness.

Rubio might be in just the right sweet spot, able to step in when the party is looking for someone more presentable than Trump or Carson and just as the major primaries are being held. Rubio’s political positions might be ludicrous, but he doesn’t sound ludicrous when he enunciates them, and they do appeal to the Republican base.

The same factors and his Hispanic appeal could make Rubio a strong veep choice, if he doesn’t win the top of the ticket.

At the moment, the timing is working for Rubio. And timing is everything, in politics and comedy – whichever this turns out to be.

Jac Wilder VerSteeg is a columnist for The South Florida Sun Sentinel, former deputy editorial page editor for The Palm Beach Post and former editor of Context Florida. Column courtesy of Context Florida.