Sen. Ted Cruz’ victory in the Iowa Caucus last night leaves Sen. Marco Rubio as the “Establishment” alternative to the “populist” rebels, namely Cruz and Donald Trump — or so the punditeska of the American media tells us. Rubio’s stronger-than-expected third place finish gives the “Establishment” a viable horse in the race after the implosion of Bush 3.0. The content of the Republican primaries is obscure even to American analysts, and from an Asian vantage point must appear as opaque as the tribal dances of New Guinea neolithics. Nonetheless, Iowa is a great moment for a radically changing world.
“No one likes Ted Cruz,” one hears from Establishment players. One of Mitt Romney’s largest “bundlers” (fund-raisers) told me, “There are 99 other senators and hundreds of Congressmen, and not one of them likes Cruz. How can he get elected?”
Cruz’s colleagues hate him with good reason. During the Reagan and Bush pere-et-fils administrations, the Republican Establishment became a formidable force, with major media (Fox News and the Wall Street Journal), think tanks (with the American Enterprise Institute in the lead), political journals, and — perhaps most important — an intellectual caste prepared to train and vet promising young people for future high positions. Although American universities fell under the sway of the Left, conservative holdouts in university departments could direct their students into the right internships, starter jobs, and senior positions with appropriate doctorates, scholarly articles, middlebrow books and newspaper op-eds.
And at the end of the career cycle, there were lobbying firms to provide pension plans. Newt Gringrich’s $1.6 million lobbying fee for the Federal National Mortgage Association, a prime culprit in the 2008 subprime crash, was egregrious but not atypical. The donor list that Irving Kristol assembled back when he ran the Reagan administration’s kindergarten at the American Enterprise Institute still provides fellowships at foundations, research grants, and subsidies for loss-making publications.
The problem is that the Republican Establishment failed catastrophically in the mid-2000s. It sold out to the subprime bubblers (although the Wall Street Journal editorial page warned early and often of the risks of federal guarantees for dodgy mortgage loans). It was asleep at the switch when the banks persuaded then Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan to allow 70-t0-1 leverage on bogus AAA securities backed by subprime. And it closed ranks between the stupidest idea in the history of American foreign policy, namely the export of democracy at great cost in blood and treasure.
