Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, was introducing the candidate I’d come to see, but with descriptions that bore no relation to the candidate I’d come to know.
He called this man “one of the great listeners that I’ve ever been around in my entire life.” He praised him as “a person who is full of humility.”
Then it hit me: Perry was playing defense and asserting the precise virtues that the candidate famously lacks.
.. Many of us have worried that the increasingly circuslike, invasive, round-the-clock nature of modern campaigns would frighten off anyone with an inkling of modesty, an iota of self-doubt. Who would endure this ordeal and make this bargain?
The answer, all too often, is someone who finds the spotlight so mesmerizing that the ugliness on its periphery doesn’t matter, or someone whose hunger for validation is so prodigious that only Air Force One will sate it.
.. As a cocky teenager, he said that his life goals were to “take over the world, world domination, you know, rule everything.” He separately wrote of plans to “achieve a strong enough reputation and track record to run for — and win — president of the United States.”
Conservative intellectuals have become convinced that Mr. Trump, with his message of nationalist-infused populism, poses a dire threat to conservatism, and plan to issue a manifesto on Friday to try to stop him.
Meanwhile, the cadre of Republican lobbyists, operatives and elected officials based in Washington are much more unnerved by Mr. Cruz, a go-it-alone, hard-right crusader who campaigns against the political establishment and could curtail their influence and access, building his own Republican machine to essentially replace them.
.. Yet many members of the Republican influence apparatus, especially lobbyists and political strategists, say they could work with Mr. Trump as the party’s standard-bearer, believing that he would be open to listening to them and cutting deals, and would not try to take over the party.
.. Moreover, some believe that Mr. Trump’s campaign could serve as a much-needed release valve for a Republican electorate.
.. The debate essentially revolves around what is more important — who controls the party, or what the party stands for.
.. You can coach Donald. If he got nominated he’d be scared to death. That’s the point he would call people in the party and say, ‘I just want to talk to you.’”
With help from an allied group that is airing television ads in Iowa, Mr. Rubio is seeking to raise doubts on the right about Mr. Cruz’s toughness on national security — a potentially fatal vulnerability, should Mr. Rubio succeed, amid heightened concerns about terrorism. More quietly, he is trying to muddy the perception that Mr. Cruz is a hard-liner on immigration, asserting that Mr. Cruz supports “legalizing people that are in this country illegally.”
.. Their stances on core policy issues are actually quite similar: Each toes the conservative line on taxes, abortion and guns. But they are making the most of where they diverge: Mr. Rubio’s more moderate posture on immigration, and Mr. Cruz’s effort to chart a middle course on national security between hawks like Mr. Rubio and more libertarian-minded Republicans like Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.
.. And they are working to sow doubts about Mr. Cruz’s convictions on immigration, an issue on which Mr. Rubio is vulnerable because of his leadership role in the failed effort to push through legislation that would have offered a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Aides to Mr. Rubio have quietly pushed reporters to question Mr. Cruz about how he defines amnesty — an effort to undermine Mr. Cruz with hard-liners by exposing his unwillingness to call for mass deportations.
.. Mr. Rubio, though, has a very different view of how the campaign is to be won. While he is stepping up his appearances in the early nominating states, his aides believe that garnering positive news coverage, especially in the widely viewed debates, is most crucial to early success, which then begets subsequent wins.
.. “More people in Iowa see Marco on ‘Fox and Friends’ than see Marco when he is in Iowa. Of course, that doesn’t mean you don’t go to Iowa.”