My column for Politico today:
If the Republican Party is to be saved from Donald Trump, Ted Cruz’s runaway victory in Wisconsin will have been the inflection point.
If you thought this service to the GOP would be met with plaudits and gratitude from the party’s insiders, you obviously don’t know anything about their relationship to the Texas senator.
St. Augustine famously prayed, Dear Lord, make me chaste — but not yet. The GOP establishment’s prayer is, Dear Lord, deliver us from Donald Trump — but not with Ted Cruz.
The increasing likelihood of a contested convention in Cleveland has led to chatter about such a conclave turning to a white knight who has the advantage of being neither Trump nor Cruz. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who ascended to the third-highest constitutional office in the land while (sincerely) saying he didn’t want it, is most often mentioned for the honor of winning a nomination he didn’t run for.
The white-knight talk has all the hallmarks of a psychological mechanism for GOP insiders to avoid acknowledging their dependence on Cruz, who is all that is standing between the party and what might be an epic Trump-led meltdown.