Marco Rubio plots dubious path to victory

The folks at National Review, desperate for a Republican presidential nominee, are setting their sights on Marco Rubio and his strategy for turning losing into winning.

According to multiple Rubio allies recently briefed on campaign strategy, the senator’s team has settled on an unconventional path to winning the GOP primary contest. The strategy, dubbed “3-2-1” by some who have been briefed on it, forecasts a sequence in which Rubio takes third place in Iowa on February 1, finishes second in New Hampshire on February 9, and wins South Carolina on February 20. From there, Rubio would be well-positioned in the long haul to win a plurality of voters, and ultimately a majority of delegates, in a three-way contest against Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

This planning represents a concession from Rubio’s brain trust that Cruz and Trump will take the top two spots in Iowa—most likely in that order-and that Trump will win New Hampshire. 

More boldly, it assumes that a Rubio victory will be possible in South Carolina even if he doesn’t win either of the first two states. This would not be unprecedented; Newt Gingrich in 2012 won South Carolina after finishing fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire.

And we all know how Newt Gingrich rode a South Carolina win to ultimate victory for the nomination. Even so, it's ... sort of a plan? Rubio's camp has set up a firewall in South Carolina, this report says, and he's got solid South Carolina campaign veterans on board. So what Rubio needs is to do well enough in New Hampshire (see his scorched earth campaign ads there) to wipe out any possible other establishment-type. 

When Jeb! Bush, John Kasich, and Chris Christie are dispensed with in New Hampshire, the thinking goes, everyone will coalesce around Rubio. But he needs to do substantially better than any of them, both in Iowa and New Hampshire, to force them out of the race. The so-far sleeper campaign of Kasich, however, might be in a position to end those hopes and dreams.