As we enter the dog days of summer, 2014, it is a good time to entertain the idea of who will be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2016. For the first time in living memory there is no clear-cut favorite to win the nomination. As we get closer to 2015, like any good horse race the candidates are already lining up at the gate. They have been organizing and before you know it, Iowa and New Hampshire will see the candidates face to face. The New Hampshire and Iowa primaries are for political junkies like myself the political equivalent of spring training in baseball. Those two states hold the key to the ambitions and aspirations of the Republican hopefuls. 

So who will be the nominee? My crystal ball is a little foggy but it is starting to clear. If I might go out on a limb, this nominee will not come from the moderate wing of the Republican Party nor will he or she come from the establishment. Since Reagan many of the party faithful claim and rightly so that the party has not nominated a true blue conservative since Ronald Reagan. Many of the hardcore grassroots workers in the party have concluded that if they had nominated a true conservative during those elections for President they would have won the election. They are determined to go for broke and go against the so-called conventional wisdom that a nominee needs to appeal to more than the party base if they are to win.

There can be no doubt that the party has taken a rightward tilt. If we conclude that primary voters are likely to reject establishment candidates, we can eliminate, Chris Christie and Jeb Bush from the list of potential winners.

I am going to go out on a very large limb and say that the race for the White House will come down to either Senator Rand Paul or Senator Ted Cruz in what should be a great battle for the nomination from the Republican Party. They are both favorites of the right-wing. And the winner is going to be???????? Ted Cruz.
Before any of you start to worry that I have left my senses some place let me tell you why I think he will win. The tendency is to underestimate him, but in contrast to Senator Paul, Senator Cruz articulates his thoughts extremely well. He is very bright and he has argued cases before the Supreme Court. He has won his fair share of cases. He clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist. He is a true believer in his causes. Most importantly he stands out in a sorry list of candidates. Among the Tea Party faithful he is very popular. He was an excellent debater at Harvard. He is not to be taken lightly as a candidate. Senator Cruz must have something going for him because even though he is a freshman senator he influenced the closing down of the government. Yesterday, his appeal to the House members won the day regarding the bill to fund some money for the children who crossed the border into Texas. His influence led the Speaker to remove the bill from consideration. The key reason I believe he will win the nomination is that he encompasses what the current right-wing of the Republican Party is all about.
Rand Paul will be in the fight, he has the financial backing of the Koch Brothers, and his current isolationist views in foreign policy are increasingly popular. He does not have the gift of gap and charisma that Cruz has.
If nothing else the nomination process will be entertaining. I would be interested in hearing what you all think regarding the race for the White House in 2016.