David Brooks and the pink rug

I'll start with a repost, from 4 Dec:

No, Donald Trump Won’t Win
David Brooks DEC. 4, 2015

Somewhat bizarrely, he starts by talking about buying a rug. The pink one really stood out, and he liked it a lot on first glance... ... but then he decided the blue one would be easier to live with.

He then suggested that Donald Trump is the current "pink rug" of the GOP "likely primary voter".

This may have been a nice homey analogy... IF he'd been able to suggest a plausible "blue rug" alternative.
But - no.
In fact, Brooks doesn't even TRY to suggest a plausible alternative.
The best he can do is to suggest that

When campaigns enter that final month, voters tend to gravitate toward the person who seems most orderly. As the primary season advances, voters’ tolerance for risk declines. They focus on the potential downsides of each contender and wonder, Could this person make things even worse?

When this mental shift happens, I suspect Trump will slide.

Really?

Where's the blue rug?

Hmmm... Mr. Brooks has been a big fan of Marco Rubio, believing he will end up being the "blue rug".

I wonder now if Mr. Brooks might be willing to consider one of the DEMOCRATIC candidates.

He could even invoke his hero, Ronald Reagan:

“I didn’t leave the Democratic party, the Democratic Party left me.”

... of course, Mr. Brooks would have to paraphrase this:

I didn't leave the Republican party; the Republican Party left me!