Can GOP hold the White House for the next 16 years?

That scenario is unlikely, if the leading Republican presidential contender wins the nomination. As Dr. Ben Carson said, it will be only four years. We can only pray that the damage will not be too great.

As of now, either of the other two remaining Republican contestants has little chance to win over Donald Trump. Ted Cruz seems to have a statistical chance, but his extremism mirrors that of Donald Trump. Hence, it is hard to guess how voters at the remaining primaries and then delegates at the Republican Convention will decide. Even if either Trump or Cruz gets the nomination, will voters prefer a risky unknown over the known shortcomings of keeping a Democrat in the White House. John Kasich might have a better chance to win undecided voters in November, but first he would need to get the nomination at a contested convention. It will be hard for him to get and it would cause even more rifts within the already divided Republican Party.

Can Kasich and Cruz join forces and form a united ticket against Trump? With Ted Cruz having more delegates than Kasich, intuitively Kasich would be assigned a VP position on the ticket. This still leaves the divisiveness of Cruz as an objection. Also, one can doubt whether Kasich would accept the offer; at least, he should not. The less obvious option, of Cruz accepting the VP position on a ticket headed by Kasich, can secure the White House for Republicans for the next 16 years.

The sad truth of Ted’s Cruz uncompromising approach is that, in general, he is right. The values that led to the rise of the Unites States in the first place have been diluted and gradually replaced by the socialistic mantra of government taking care of everything. On almost every essential issue, about half of Americans opt for returning to basic constitutional values, as Ted Cruz advocates, when the other half see the lengthy tradition of government-run social policies as an integral part of American tradition, worth sustaining. Cruz ignores this reality with his inability to walk in small steps. So deeply convinced that he is right, he lives in a bubble, not realizing that his stubbornness has been unproductive so far in the Senate, and basically disqualifies him in his quest for president.

All of Cruz’s life experiences circle around ideologies; he has no hands-on knowledge of how things are actually done in the economy and politics. Being out of touch with earthbound stuff, Cruz turned his conservatism into a religion, a canon of things to believe in, loosely connected with facts and logic. Just let us look at his immigration policy as an example. Cruz cannot see that all the maladies of our current immigration policy do not result from the malicious nature of people trying to come here but from the faults of the policy itself. Our immigration laws are rooted in acts voted in the years 1917-1924, by the same people who voted in Prohibition. The same logic of government knowing better is embedded in our failing immigration policy, resulting in honest people breaking the law by doing otherwise moral things, such as getting into labor contracts. Overwhelmed by his religion of conservatism, Cruz cannot even see that, while advocating for small government in general, he stands for big government on the immigration issue. If for at least one year he were signing payroll checks on the front, not on the back, he would have at least a basic understanding of the free market, which he evidently lacks. Then, he could envision resolving our immigration issue by following the old Reagan mantra:  “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

Despite all of the above, America can benefit from having Ted Cruz as president. But Cruz would be a much better president after eight years of an apprenticeship as a vice president for an experienced and proven effective politician such as John Kasich. Cruz’s help can be essential in Kasich succeeding in implementing his modest goals of limiting government and empowering people. We can hope that, eight years from now, Cruz still will stand for defending basic constitutional values, but will be much better prepared to execute his vision as the next president. Coincidentally, after the success of a Kasich administration, American voters might be more inclined to support Cruz.

If Ted Cruz can stand in front of a mirror and say privately what he already said publicly on CNN to John Kasich: “Put country first,” then he would need to wait until 2024 for his presidential nomination. Nevertheless, this would give the GOP a fair chance to hold the White House for the next 16 years.