Think the 2016 GOP presidential primary process favors the establishment?

Nationally syndicated radio host Hugh Hewitt has a new book out titled "The Queen: The Epic Ambition of Hillary and the Coming of a Second 'Clinton Era,'" in which the lawyer and political veteran plays Machiavelli to Hillary Clinton, developing a playbook to ensure her dominance while simultaneously exposing what he believes are her fatal flaws.

One section of Hewitt's book concerns his scouting reports on the various Republican opponents she may face in 2016, and how she ought to approach them.

In this context, Hewitt writes something that may be of interest for those who would assume that the Republican primary rules for 2016 might favor candidates from the GOP establishment. Hewitt in fact makes the case that the rules and calendar favor Sen. Ted Cruz above all other candidates.

During an in-depth interview in TheBlaze's New York offices in connection with his new book, I had the chance to ask Hewitt to explain his view:

In February of this year – the "Reince Reforms," the [Reince] Priebus rules -- require that only four states vote, and those are Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

And Nevada is a caucus state that Rand Paul will win, but which will be dismissed because the Paul supporters there are deep and organized, and caucuses are really false positives, which is important. But he’ll win it. He’ll win some delegates.

So the three races that matter are Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. And what really matters are New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Ted Cruz has an enormous amount of under-the-radar strength in Iowa among young people. I ran 12 mock Iowa caucuses at the Young Conservative Leadership Conference last summer. I’m going to do it again next week. Ted Cruz won a plurality in each of the six original caucuses and a straight out majority in the re-votes after they had argued, reflecting deep ties into social media. He’ll do well in Iowa, he’ll get some delegates. He'll go to New Hampshire he'll finish in the top four or five. He'll go to South Carolina and finish in the top three. And then they go to Texas. And he will win Texas on March 1st.

Which means that coming out of the first 31 days of voting, the person with the most delegates is gonna be Ted Cruz according to the calendar. He’s also got $37 million in the bank, the Mercer family behind him, and an almost unparalleled ability – Rubio and Carly Fiorina are very good, Marco and Carly are very good as well – those three are among the most able talkers I’ve ever met. And I think he’ll [Sen. Cruz] be able to run the board, if anyone can run the board.

And it's highly likely in my view that we’re going to an open convention – a brokered convention at which anything can happen and probably will … It's gonna be wild and I’m from Northeastern Ohio, so I’m glad the most interesting convention since the won that nominated Lincoln in Chicago in 1860 will occur on the shores of Lake Erie in the city of champions, 2016. We lost this year because Lebron can't beat five people by himself.

During the wide-ranging interview which you can listen to in full below, we also had the chance to discuss several other topics including:

• Why Hewitt is giving advice to help Hillary Clinton win the presidency and ensure prolonged Clintonian dominance
• The political patronage system that Hillary should look to build, in order to expand her power base at the local level
• Hewitt’s thoughts on Huma Abedin and why the Clinton administration should be working to discredit of all people former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy
• Why Hewitt believes especially in light of the OPM Hack, Hillary’s use of a private server ought to be disqualifying
• Why Hewitt believes Sen. Rand Paul is Hillary Clinton’s "bridge" to Chelsea Clinton
• Whether 2016 could be a replay of 1968
• And much much more

Full disclosure: The author of this post attended a for-pay event benefitting Sen. Ted Cruz. The money paid to attend is listed with the FEC as a donation to Cruz's presidential campaign.

Note: The link to the book in this post will give you an option to elect to donate a percentage of the proceeds from the sale to a charity of your choice. Mercury One, the charity founded by TheBlaze’s Glenn Beck, is one of the options. Donations to Mercury One go towards efforts such as disaster relief, support for education, support for Israel and support for veterans and our military. You can read more about Amazon Smile and Mercury One here.

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