No candidate in the race offers as clear and comprehensible a break from the Bush legacy on international relations as Ted Cruz. To be sure, Trump has praised Putin and raged — quite effectively — against the President Bush who blew big bucks on near-disaster in Iraq. On the other hand, Trump has completely ignored his one concrete campaign promise to release a list of foreign policy advisors. Who knows — Trump included — what he has in store? Instead, it is Ted Cruz on the Senate Armed Services Committee, with Graham and that other influential interventionist, John McCain, and Ted Cruz whose dose of foreign policy realism best embodies a studious evolution forward from Ronald Reagan’s view of the best offense being a good defense.

If the likes of Graham, McCain, and Jeb Bush himself believe they can or must make room for Cruz on foreign affairs, that bespeaks a colossal evacuation of the established party’s confidence in Rubio’s fight against Trump. Rubio not only embodies the establishment’s idea of the perfect Republican voter. He has also swallowed — hook, line, and sinker — an insecure version of neoconservatism, somehow convinced it is the baseline for mainstream Republican candidates. The neocon Jedi Council may have good reason to believe that Rubio is neither up to the task of securing the nomination nor of pursuing a rigorous and judicious brand of statecraft, even with help.