With Donald Trump’s massive win in NH and his big lead in South Carolina as well as nationally, the anti-Trump faction of the GOP needs to act fast to avoid the catastrophe of a Trump nomination. But what’s their move?
It seems to me that John Kasich’s very surprising second-place finish in NH is awful news for them, because I think he’s an unlikely rallying point (as I said last night). Kasich is, in reality, a pretty right-wing guy despite his warmer-and-fuzzier, compassionate conservative rhetoric. But he has one gigantic problem which, because nobody really saw his big NH surge coming, didn’t figure much there: Obamacare. As you may recall, Kasich is one of the very few Republican Governors who adopted Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, thereby committing the cardinal Republican sin of supplying health care to thousands of people living in his state. After NH, expect the Obamacare attack to become much, much louder. Indeed, it has already begun.
Furthermore, Kasich’s all-in strategy in NH worked there, but leaves him in a tough spot going forward. The next bunch of contests are concentrated in the south, where he seems unlikely to do well. He doesn’t have all that much money, and he doesn’t have much of an organization elsewhere. Is he really the guy to whom the big donors are going to flock?
What about the rest? Ted Cruz, of course, is also hated by the GOP elite, yet he finished third in NH without trying very hard. He is well-positioned to move into the more conservative states coming up next. After him, Jeb! came in fourth, Rubio a disappointing fifth, and Christie sixth. Christie is heading home to New Jersey and will almost surely drop out, correctly seeing no plausible path to the nomination after two very weak finishes. Jeb continues to astonish by setting what must be a record of dollars spent per vote garnered. But that can’t continue for long; at some point he has to actually win something, and he remains a singularly unimpressive, uninspiring candidate for president.
Rubio? I thought his “momentum” out of a third-place finish in Iowa was overrated, and the fact that it was so easily derailed by a modest mistake in a debate (it’s not like he called someone a pussy, or something outrageous like that) suggests that I was right. As a result, he came in fifth in NH, losing badly to Ted Cruz and narrowly to his arch-enemy (not counting Christie) and fellow Floridian Jeb!. Polling has him in a solid third place in South Carolina, and if that holds up, is the guy finishing 3-5-3 in the first three contests really the hero the establishment is looking for? Again, at some point, he has to win something, and it’s hard to see that happening soon.
If it were me, I might swallow hard and start trying to buy favor with Cruz; Trump is too erratic, controversial, and offensive to risk being closely associated with, and the rest just seem sad. What would you do?
…before we start calling Trump’s win “massive”. Yes, he placed ahead of Kasich by double digits, but still only got about 1/3 of the vote.
David lays out a compelling case that Trump is a real frontrunner with the best shot at the nomination at this point. The establishment should be rallying around Cruz, but they dislike him so much many are coming around to Trump instead.
A more interesting question locally is what affect Trump at the top of the ticket will have on MA Republicans and how they might navigate such uncharted waters. It’s a question I’ll be spending a lot of time thinking about.
…(OK, maybe mostly hoping) that as we get to more contests GOP voters will finally wake up to “Oh no, we really have to elect a President now and nominate someone worthy.”
Why wouldn’t they? “[T]oo erratic, controversial, and offensive” are hardly disqualifiers when compared with Cruz’ religious extremism and antipathy toward the mainstream. Trump will work with anyone who supports him — for now, at least, when he needs them. Of course they would have preferred someone like Rubio or Jeb! because they can control them better, and because Trump, as you have previously, noted, has some disturbingly liberal elements of his platform — but those two can’t seem to find a strong base of support. Trump the billionaire bankrupt and vulgarian might well lose to Clinton, but I think he’d beat Democratic Socialist Sanders going away, more’s the pity.
NH data shows that they actually have a similar base of independents and working whites they can pull from that wouldn’t be likely to vote for HRC in a general. I actually thin Trump, like Arnold and Reagan, is a celebrity brand separate from a distinct ideology and can be a chameleon to win votes and be popular. Arnold ran on walls against illegals too and ended up pivoting to climate change and marriage equality to win over C Suite Prius drivers.
Trump will likely tone down the religious right rhetoric, as he already did with NECNs Sue Connell, soften the abortion stance and emphasize all his economic populism over the nativism.
So I see him being harder to beat against a known quantity like Hillary, though if Sanders v Trump who the hell knows what will happen. As 1956 Doc Brown asked Marty McFly about President Reagan ‘who’s his Vice President? Jerry Lewis or Dean Martin?”
another partial up vote, until you got to the part about Trump beating Sanders. I won’t put a nickel on a bet like that, in either direction.
And there still remains the possibility of Bloomberg, who I think is encouraged by the NH and Iowa result: a GOP in meltdown, Hillary damaged with an out of control husband and Bernie not loved by the Establishment.
Why do people hate Ted Cruz so much when they first meet him?
It Saves Time.
Credit Rick Horowitz – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-horowitz/
and the party would rather have someone who attracts independents rather than repels them, which Cruz would. Trump would cost the party some Republican votes, but those people would not be changing their votes down ballot to Democrats.
The 2016 Republican path to the presidency has always been tough, even against Sec Clinton. One could see Kasich or Bush as President, but it’s hard to see them as a winning candidate. I once thought Rubio could get through the primaries, but I’m not so sure anymore. Better for the party to just get behind Trump (assuming he continues to win) and see what happens.
of a bunch of party bigwigs sitting down in a room with Trump, and saying something like, “OK, we’ll back you. But you CANNOT call anyone else a pussy! Got it?” To which one imagines that Trump would smirk and challenge them to prove that, when they saw the video, they didn’t laugh.
One of his supporters called him by that epithet, and he repeated her comment with mock disapproval. Trump is clever, in a snide way at times reminiscent of his fellow born on third base trust fund baby George W. Bush.
It’s not what you’d call a political opponent though.
Times changes. “Sucks” used to be shorthand for a whole range of offensive comments. Now most kids think its a synonym for “is bad.”
Not sure if you remember when GHW Bush was recorded saying he “whipped a little ass” after his Geraldine Ferraro debate. Seems almost quaint now.
I do. Especially when you add in the context of what that woman said afterward:
I didn’t see that! Those trump supporters, no political correctness for them! Yeesh.
Interestingly, the “wimp” meaning of the word pre-dates the “genetalia” meaning, although the two meanings have been self-reinforcing, for precisely the reason that this is a phrasing that no president should ever use, and is dramatically different in kind than using the word “ass.”
Or at least cares this much.
I haven’t heard anyone use that word to describe female anatomy since the 70s.
You wrote “I haven’t heard anyone use that word to describe female anatomy since the 70s.”
True enough. That just shows that you hang out with classier people than Mr. Trump and his supporters.
That term’s still in heavy rotation.
and there were a number of jokes in the movie about that.
I would suggest that more than a dozen words on this list are more commonly used than pussy
http://womensissues.about.com/od/femalesexuality/f/Most-Common-Slang-Words-Terms-For-Vagina.htm
There’s no shortage of “pussy” out there. I think what might have happened is you got older.
by the two teenage boys in my living room.
Delighted that your parsing skills remain intact. 😉
I agree that Trump is clever. I think he knew exactly what he was going to do as soon as that woman called our her comment, and he set it up to be able to maintain some level of plausible deniability. Whatever. It’s still something that no serious candidate for president has ever done before.
It can’t be Kasich! It can’t be Kasich! It can’t be Kasich!
Reading the press today, I see many are still in denial of what just happened last night. Bush should have been the one picking Rubio’s votes, when Rubio malfunctioned and broke down on stage. Instead, Rubio’s votes flipped to Kasich.
New Hampshire showed there is deep distaste for the dynastic candidates – Bush on the right, Clinton on the left. Rubio can sink or swim, but his votes won’t go to Bush.
Here’s how this works: Pundits comment, handicap, make scenarios, but once people vote, you hit that reset and start anew. Sounds to me that many comments are still stuck in the pre-NH mentality. Wake up people, it’s a new day!
One thing we learned, for example, is that 1/3 of D voters in New Hampshire said integrity is their greatest concern. And they voted almost all for Bernie.
Another thing we learned is that voters under 45 are overwhelmingly for Bernie.
That is very bad news for Hillary. If these percentages hold up in other states, she’s in big trouble. This campaign is starting to look more and more like Obama ’08.
N/T
not that the Pubs have ever asked me for my advice.
But theoretically, consider seriously for a moment, Jimmy Carter’s analysis of the field. He said he would support Trump over Cruz because the ‘Donald’ is more ‘MALLEABLE’ than Cruz. That’s an interesting way to describe Trump. In other words, he’s saying Trump is NOT a rock-ribbed, dyed in the wool, right-wing, conservative ideologue like Cruz. You could make a deal with him in a way you just couldn’t with Cruz.
If Carter is right that leaves Trump a lot of room to tack to the middle for the general. Especially if he put a moderate like Kasich on the ticket as his Veep. He could also compete for Ohio and the other Rust Belt states in the Midwest.
Or as Rowan and Martin’s German comedian would say : ” Interesting, verrrry interesting.” 🙂
Fred Rich LaRiccia
One of them anyway. He says he is social liberal and economic populist who’d run a campaign to win over Fox News voters exaxtly what they want to hear and then pivot to a general and win on the strength of his personality. It’s not unheard of.
and he has never proposed changing Social Security for the worse. He really is not a spear carrier for the traditional Republican mantras. I know a couple of establishment Republicans who hate him more than than they hate Hillary.)))
He doubled down on it yesterday. According to Trump, we all will be getting Social Security and Medicare with no whammies attached. We paid for it and the people who want to slash or eliminate those programs are trying to screw us over.
I have never understood why the Republicans think it will work to feed off of people’s insecurities and then try to take away the programs that give everyone end-of-life security. That’s stupid politics. Trump’s throwing down on that issue. You’re going to get the greatest Social Security ever.
The idea is to get people to vote for you. Trump could win the nomination on this alone. All these other candidates are talking about how they’re going to give you the shaft. Trump’s got your back.
I think this is the issue he uses to wipe out the rest of the field. It makes the others, except possibly Kasich, look like cartoon villains.
True enough, regarding his position on social security.
Of course, you have to listen to the rest of what he says to realize that it doesn’t even BEGIN to hold together, because Mr. Trump feels no need to bother with such trivialities as an internally consistent set of economic and tax proposals.
Even a cursory reading of the Donald Trump tax plan, combined with his various other proposals, leads to a conclusion that any actual POLICY views of this man are still, um, evolving.
It’s worth checking in to see what others think of Mr. Trump’s “plans”.
Consider his proposals for undocumented immigrants, for example. From the above link (emphasis mine):
Donald Trump “is really harkening back to the outdated mercantilist positions of hundreds of years ago.”.
Indeed. Ah, what do those economists know anyway. They’re all
pussieswimps. 🙂As we’ve discussed here, most people are clueless.
Trump’s obviously is selling something that people want, and they don’t seem to need to read the fine print to queue up to vote for him.
I don’t get it either, except maybe they think that the upside is considerable (make America great again) and the downside is limited (Congress and the courts won’t let him mess up too badly).
If America learns the hard way that the “upside” offered by Donald Trump the candidate is about as real as the health benefits actually gained from the dietary supplements promoted through “The Trump Network”, perhaps little long-lasting harm will be done.
It’s the assumption that the downside is limited that I fear is seriously risky.
I don’t think we’ve ever had a President as crazy as Donald Trump, certainly not in the nuclear era. I think he is fully capable of just about ANYTHING. If President Donald Trump orders the military to bomb the shit out of ISIS — meaning a full-scale aerial assault on much of Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere, do you think they would comply?
If the US began carpet bombing Damascus, do you really think the Russians would do nothing?
I think that we don’t know just how badly President Donald Trump could mess up. Picture whatever tense moments of history you like over the past few decades, look at what whomever was in office did, and ask yourself what you think Donald Trump might do — especially given essentially limitless power.
I do not share your confidence that the downside is limited. I wish I did.
is that I don’t think he believes his own shtick, and the office might have a certain sobering effect, at least in areas that involve risking war with Russia and China.
He’s already moving to the middle on gay rights and basically wrote in one of his books that you win the GOP nomination by appealing to the Fox News viewer and then pivot to the general by appealing to the View viewer. His status as a celebrity and reality star comes in handy for this approach.
That said, rank racist nativism brought him to the dance and will be really hard for him to shake, and I am both optimistic enough about my country and realist enough about how brown it’s become to think that’s gotta be a game ender for the general.
He has to be politically savvy. Developers who aren’t don’t build anything, ever, because their permit is still in the works, check again next month.
Reconciling what he says with other things he says and then what he proposes and what he does likely could make a person’s head explode.
Yet telling Americans who’ve paid into these programs for decades that they’ll get what they paid for ought to be conservative orthodoxy. Ripping apart those programs at this point is radicalism. Like merrimackguy said, the website details might not match the rhetoric, but that’s a winning message.
There’s only one problem with that: Kasich will not kiss up to Trump, as several respectable Republicans were all too eager to do (Bob Dole, Chuck Grassley, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, …)