Despite that history, when this election season is concluded, Republicans are most likely going to owe Donald Trump thanks. Trump’s actually running a campaign model that is the reductio ad absurdum of the last two Republican presidential campaign failures – 30,000-foot messaging with no ground game whatsoever.
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Dispatch Washington bureau chief Jack Torry writes, “The Ohio governor acknowledged he had signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee, but then quickly added ‘it’s possible to change your mind'”. “So it’s not really about Donald Trump, it will be about who wins the primary”.
“If they don’t treat me with a certain amount of decorum and respect”. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Dr. Ben Carson would all nearly certainly be truly conservative presidents, and it’s hard to imagine any of them would ever support the kind of liberal policies Trump has openly proposed in the past. Is it even feasible? So far, Trump hasn’t spent one million dollars, nor has he had to do so; he’s been riding a wave based on nearly nothing more than personal appearances and earned media.
Richard Winger, the editor of Ballot Access News, estimates that an independent candidate would need approximately 579,000 signatures total to get on the ballot in all 50 states.
“Beyond Trump, what you’re seeing is the party bracing for a potential “Hunger Games” scenario where you have a different person win each of the first four primaries and they all have the resources to slug it out until the convention”, Stevens said.
While on a radio talk show Wednesday, Republican presidential hopeful and Ohio Gov. John Kasich said he would “shoot down Russian planes if they violated a no-fly zone in Syria”, Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski reports.
Republicans will owe Donald Trump thanks.
Still, finances shouldn’t be an issue for the billionaire mogul, who repeatedly touts how he is funding his own campaign. They did not signal support an overt anti-Trump effort.
“He said, look, if we can’t vet these folks coming in from the Islamic world, where all these wars are going on, Sunni versus Shia, al-Qaida, and ISIS, maybe we ought to have a moratorium, a temporary time out on mass immigration into the U.S. until we correct our system, or reduce the numbers coming in”.
If he doesn’t want to spend his own money, he could start fundraising in earnest.
“Domestic problems and global turmoil encourages voters to go for candidates outside the political establishment who will shake up politics as usual”.
How much would it hurt the GOP?
Republicans are clearly just as unhappy with Trump as the rest of us.
It’s also silly to think that condemnation from party elites will, at this point, be sufficient to neutralize the Trump threat. The Grand Old Party formally took a stand to oppose Trump’s proposals even as he elicited support from wingnuts ranging from the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis, who turned his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” to “Make America White Again”.
Yes – and there’s historical precedent for it.
Now, however, it seems as though his latest proposal to bar all Muslims – American citizens or otherwise – is a step too far for high-ranking Republicans, as many were quick to condemn him.
“I’ll be disadvantaged”, Trump stated.
So will he do it? “And (Trump) probably espouses that better than anybody else”.
“He’s doing well enough in the polls that if I were advising him, I would say, don’t run as an independent”.
“I don’t think there’s an answer to that”, says veteran strategist Carter Wrenn. “And I’m sure that’s what he’ll do”. A poll conducted by Rasmussen found that a whopping 73% of Republicans say they would not vote for a Muslim president, compared to 35% of Democrats. “There are some things we know about Trump”.
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The prix-fixe three-course meal at the Source, an upscale Asian fusion restaurant near the Capitol, was part of a regular invitation-only dinner series hosted by Priebus in which he solicits candid input from party leaders.
