THE ODD COUPLE.
I've been saying for years that libertarianism is just a way of niche-marketing conservatism, and the boys at the boutique brand are coming closer to admitting it: Rand daddy Nick Gillespie tells us "Ted Cruz Might Just Have Won the Future for the GOP" and for a "limited-government coalition" of freaks and geeks. While Rand Paul comes to the voters with libertarian cred -- that is, he "wears turtlenecks, sports weird hair, and talks about letting states decide their own laws on drugs and marriage"--
Cruz is rocking a retrograde, wet-look haircut and is unambiguously and unambivalently conservative on any social issue, including the phantom menace of Sharia law (“an enormous problem” in America, according to Cruz).
That's putting it mildly. Have a look and you'll see that Cruz is straight-up wingnut on everything, pretty much -- against gay marriage and open borders, for the death penalty, as strong a supporter of Big Oil as Texas has ever sent to the Senate, etc. (In some areas, like foreign policy, his conservatism overlaps libertarianism -- as does the conservatism of, say, Sarah Palin these days; so long as Obama is CiC, conservatives are provisional doves.)
There isn't really any difference between the two creeds except on social issues, and Cruz is totally retrograde there. So why should libertarians support him? Because together they can win, imagines Gillespie:
As [Rand] Paul brings in fresh new blood to a broad, limited-government coalition, Cruz is locking down the tired old blood that realizes the John Boehners, Mitch McConnells, John McCains, and Lindsey Grahams of the world really don’t give a rat’s ass about them.
There you have it. The so-called social-libertarian stuff isn't such a big deal to them, as libertarians themselves are starting to admit; so long as corporations are allowed to run rampant (and for the little people, barbers don't need licenses!), they can brush all that gay/black/women stuff into a states-rights discussion, where they'll patiently Randsplain that civil liberties don't have to be the same thing in Alabama as they are in California, because that's why we have the Articles of Confederation.
It'll be like always, in other words, except the guys at Reason will be working for Republicans out in the open. Well, more out in the open.