The two main goals of the primary process – whether in a presidential or other race – are to choose the best candidate to do the job, and the candidate with the best chance of winning the job. Less than three weeks from the Iowa Caucus and less than a month from the New Hampshire Primary, we have reached a time for choosing. That choice involves a careful and serious weighing of those two objectives. Unlike in past years, the GOP’s conservative and moderate wings are both still divided, although the options are narrowing. With my first choice (Bobby Jindal) out of the race, I believe the choice for conservatives comes down to Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz – and the best candidate remaining, on balance, is Rubio. Today, I will begin a series of posts explaining why, beginning with the question of Rubio’s experience. Subsequent chapters will focus on Rubio’s salesmanship, his conservatism, and his “electability.”

The Rubio Temptation: The Gravitas Party Meets The Age Of The Shiny Object

Republican presidential primary voters face a temptation – indeed, three very different temptations, each of them a departure from the nominees (successful and unsuccessful) of the past several decades. By now, we all know the basic mold of a Republican presidential nominee in the 1952-2012 period: older, white, male, usually Protestant, generally with significant executive experience and/or a distinguished war record, often on his second try for the White House, often better known for foreign than domestic policy, rarely from the party’s liberal or conservative wings but closer to the party’s center, usually someone with strong ties to the West, Southwest or Midwest, almost always someone who has been a known quantity in national politics for a decade or two. But of the three contenders who seem most likely to still be factors in the nomination race after the first month’s voting – Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump – all break the mold in significant ways, and all tempt GOP voters to abandon old habits and accept known and uncharted risks. In terms of age, experience, and ethnic and ideological background, Rubio and Cruz depart from that mold in some very similar ways.