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A prominent Republican consultant who isnt working for any of the 2016 presidential candidates and has been right more times than I can count said something that shocked me when we had lunch recently. He said that Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) had about the same odds of becoming the Republican presidential nominee as former Florida governor Jeb Bush.

Jaw-dropper, right? After all, the conventional wisdom is that Bush, the son and brother of presidents, is the Republican standard-bearer, while Cruz, a conservatives conservative, is a factor, sure, but not someone who could actually win the nomination.

How, I asked the consultant, could he say such a thing? He explained it this way.

Think of the Republican field as a series of lanes. In this race, there are four of them: establishment, tea party, social conservative and libertarian. The four lanes are not of equal size: Establishment is the biggest, followed by tea party, social conservative and then libertarian.

Obviously, the fight for the top spot in the establishment lane is crowded, with Bush and possibly Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker leading at the moment. Ditto the social-conservative lane, with former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson and Rick Santorum pushing hard there. The libertarian lane is all Sen. Rand Pauls, but, as I noted above, its still not that big.

This leaves the tea party lane, which is both relatively large and entirely Cruzs. While Paul looked as though he might try to fight Cruz for supremacy in that lane at one time, its clear from his recent moves that the senator from Kentucky is trying to become a player in a bunch of lanes, including social conservative and establishment. So, Cruz is, without question, the dominant figure in the tea party lane.

What that means particularly in the early stages of the primary process in places such as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina is that he will probably be able to win, place or show repeatedly, racking up enough strong-ish performances to keep going even as the establishment and social-conservative lanes thin out. (Cruzs ability to raise money, which remains a question, is less important for him than it is for other candidates especially those in the establishment lane. His people are going to be for him no matter how much or little communicating he does with them.)

The trick for Cruz, the consultant said, is to hang around long enough to be the preeminent figure not only in the tea party lane but also in the social-conservative lane. (Cruz is decidedly conservative on social issues and talks regularly on the campaign trail about his faith. ) The complicating figure in that consolidation effort is Huckabee, who is (a) likely to run, (b) an ordained Southern Baptist minister and (c) likely to be able to stay in the race for an extended period because of the number of early Southern primaries.

But lets assume, for the sake of argument, that Cruz is able to outlast Huckabee (as well as Carson and Santorum). If you combine the tea party and social-conservative lanes, thats a pretty wide berth for any candidate hoping to be the GOP nominee. Is it as wide as a consolidated establishment lane behind Bush or Walker or Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.)? No one knows just yet, but its probably pretty close.

So watch Cruz. The combination of his running room as the races one true tea party candidate, his debating and oratorical skills, and his willingness to always, on every issue, stake out the most conservative position make him a real threat.

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