No, this isn’t a post about his ridiculous ideas on monetary policy, although I plan to address that at a later date.
Cruz is running as an unusual sort of combination of insider and outsider candidate: insider enough to prove his competence, but outsider enough to attract voters who are completely repelled by the status quo. As I’ve noted before, he shares this concept of his candidacy with Bernie Sanders, but at the other end of the ideological spectrum.
So far, you wouldn’t say this approach has worked, because Trump has dominated the outsider lane. If Rubio and Kasich are driven out of the race tonight, however, it is conceivable (maybe even likely) that the establishment will be forced to embrace him, and he will have the best of both worlds going into the remainder of the campaign.