JOSH KRAUSHAAR: “Playing with Fire, Republican Bigwigs Want to Take Out Cruz.”

To many out­side ob­serv­ers, the wave of seasoned Re­pub­lic­an of­fi­cials and strategists sound­ing in­creas­ingly com­fort­able with Don­ald Trump as the GOP’s pres­id­en­tial nom­in­ee is a sign of sur­render. Wheth­er it’s Iowa Gov. Terry Bran­stad root­ing for Ted Cruz to lose the Iowa caucuses or Or­rin Hatch “com­ing around a little bit” on Trump’s can­did­acy or the paucity of money spent at­tack­ing Trump on the air­waves, it feels like of­fi­cial Wash­ing­ton has sided with Trump over Cruz.

In real­ity, many are try­ing to sal­vage the cam­paign of Sen. Marco Ru­bio (or any oth­er more-main­stream al­tern­at­ive), and are bet­ting that it’s easi­er to de­feat Trump in a one-on-one show­down than Cruz em­boldened by a strong show­ing in Iowa. To di­min­ish Trump at this point, Re­pub­lic­an strategist Alex Cas­tel­lanos wrote in an email Monday, “per­versely helps both Cruz and Trump, which is not what many con­ser­vat­ives in­tend.”

Read the whole thing.

The Establishment has moved from denial, to panic, to denial and panic barely disguised by a veneer of accommodation. Voters are sick of the denial, can smell the panic, and see through the veneer.

I don’t know who the Republican nominee will be, but it’s easy to predict that this won’t be the Year of the Insider.