Sen. Ben Sasse Plays The Trump Card

The Iowa caucuses are becoming a referendum on Donald Trump. The conversation in the closing days, like the whole campaign, is all about The Donald, especially after the Republican frontrunner declared last night he will boycott Thursday’s debate on Fox News.

-- Several well-known figures on the right are making clear that they prefer Trump over Ted Cruz, who is running neck-and-neck with him in polls of likely caucus-goers. Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr., the son of the late television evangelist, and controversial Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio endorsed Trump yesterday. Over the past week, key figures from the establishment wing of the party have subtly tipped the scales in Trump’s favor.

-- Ben Sasse became worried enough about Trump’s lead that he went to Iowa yesterday to speak out against him. The freshman senator from Nebraska, who defeated a rival preferred by the establishment in a 2014 GOP primary, appeared with Cruz last night in Keosauqua and will appear this afternoon with Marco Rubio at a pub in West Des Moines. He’s not going to endorse either of them, and he may appear with a third candidate if his schedule permits, but he’s on the ground to make the case that rallying behind Trump is a very bad idea for the party.

Sasse is perturbed that party elders are making a calculation that Trump could be better in a general election than Cruz. There are too many Republicans in Washington, D.C., who like to cut deals and put points  on the board, he complained during a phone interview with The Daily 202 late last night, as he drove around southern Iowa, with spotty cell service: “Of course there are lots of people for whom that’s their crack, but that’s not going to be what makes America great again,” he said.

-- After keeping a low profile for most of his first year in office, Sasse has been raising his visibility. This past weekend, he went to New Hampshire to fill in for Dick Cheney at a state GOP cattle call. Sunday night, he gained thousands of new followers by posting a stream of Tweets asking pointed questions. The one that drew the most attention noted Trump’s affairs with married women and asked if he has repented. But the real thrust of the stream of tweets was that Trump does not follow any oaths he takes and would certainly not follow the Constitution if elected president.

The Yale-educated historian, who was president of Midland University before entering the Senate, says Trump is running to be a sort of paternalistic “strong man” and doesn’t understand the essence of the American experiment. “He’s running with this claim that he’ll be the strong man that can take care of everybody,” Sasse said, adding that it’s “ironic” he is nervous to field questions from Fox moderator Megyn Kelly.

Asked about Cruz’s lack of support from other Senate colleagues, Sasse said: “Fundamentally, this is not a student council race.” He added later, “We’re in the midst of a Constitutional crisis.”

-- Sasse's comments speak to the growing sense that this is a watershed moment for the conservative movement. Just like with Barry Goldwater vs. Nelson Rockefeller in 1964 or Ronald Reagan vs. Gerald Ford in 1976, Republican leaders will likely be judged for decades to come on whether they were with Trump (even tacitly) or against him as he marched toward the nomination. Few politicians realize it yet, but no matter what the outcome of the coming primaries, their standing in the movement will be shaped by what they say – or don’t – right now. A rising star like Sasse, joining the conservative movement’s publications of record (National Review and the Weekly Standard) in sounding alarm bells about Trump's bona fides, is positioned to emerge as a thought leader on the right. And, at just 43 and in a safe Senate seat, he could be in the arena for decades.