While Marco is doing the Lord’s work, his operatives are putting a bullet through Moe Green’s eye. The thing is, that’s what it takes to elect a bleeding-heart conservative. This is the business we’ve chosen.

Usually, there is a tradeoff between optimism and toughness. The optimistic guys who have the big ideas don’t relish the fight. The ideological bruisers—the demagogues “boldly” telling the base what they want to hear (the irony is that it doesn’t take much courage to tell the base what they want to hear)—usually hire Lee Atwater disciples to destroy the “nice” guys, who keep their operatives on a short leash. While the optimists have their lunch stolen, the bruisers can be shameless and conniving. Nobody seems to care (as Bill Clinton said, in politics it’s better to be “strong and wrong” than “weak and right”).

That dynamic isn’t likely to play out this time around. In recent days, Team Rubio has shown a clear willingness to play hardball. They have matched Team Cruz’s petty attacks on Rubio’s immigration reform stance with their own petty attacks on Cruz’s national security stance.