For those Republicans who think Trump is unelectable in the general election, tonight’s results could spur some bitter binge drinking.
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The poll may well prove to be an outlier. It’s OK to – it’s a very good quote, it’s a very interesting quote, and I know it. I saw it. I saw what – and I know who said it. But what difference does it make whether it’s Mussolini or somebody else?
“The Daily Donald” debuted with links to stories highlighting Trump business endeavors. Yes, it absolutely could.
“How does having a Republican presidential candidate not help you if you are running in upstate NY, or even in CT or MA or Pennsylvania?” John Cornyn issued the strongest warning to date on Monday about Trump telling CNN, “We can’t have a nominee be an albatross around the down-ballot races, that’s a concern of mine”.
If that’s the fate of the GOP, expect a mass exodus from the party.
Another well-known conservative writer floated a different option: Conservatives jump ship en masse, take over a small outfit like the Constitution party, and run a more acceptable candidate.
As Trump delighted in pointing out at every one of his rallies, the former Florida governor and his super PAC, Right to Rise USA, both amassed a war chest capable of annihilating any potential rival.
A harsh new attack came from Rep. Scott Rigell, R-Virginia, who is retiring at end of this year.
For months, key campaign operatives inside the Republican Party establishment were supremely confident that Trump would implode long before this moment.
“If Trump becomes the Republican nominee my expectation is that I’ll look for some 3rd candidate – a conservative option, a Constitutionalist”, Sasse, a first-term senator from Nebraska, tweeted Sunday night.
These positions not only include lots of liberal, authoritative, government-heavy ideas for the economy and healthcare, but also new limitations on freedom of speech, forms of religious expulsion, the torturing of terrorists as a punitive measure (and the killing of their families), etc. And deep-pocketed GOP donors who, according to Politico, “are appalled by the billionaire real estate showman’s campaign”, have nonetheless held back their fire as well as funding for dump-Trump efforts.
I’m not sure Donald Trump has gotten the message. “Now obviously, he must have thought that David Duke and that type of person was OK with people in Alabama and the South. Well, I want to tell you, they’re not OK with us”. Trump told Tapper. “I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists”. If Trump’s the face of the GOP, the GOP will be no more. The Southern Poverty Law Center characterizes him as “the most recognizable figure of the American radical right, a neo-Nazi, longtime Klan leader and now worldwide spokesman for Holocaust denial….” He added that “these elections are just…it’s just depressing”. “They’re not OK with me as governor”.
“We’re seeing really intense Republican energy and turnout and I think that will happen in November”, he said.
Ted Cruz, who has also raised a vast fortune in contributions, studiously avoided contact with the GOP front-runner for much of 2015, hopeful that Trump would self-destruct and releasing his angry anti-establishment electorate in search of safe harbor.
Gov. Larry Hogan says his support for previous candidate Chris Christie “doesn’t translate” to Trump.
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One is to accept what appears to be the increasingly likely outcome in the 2016 race – that Trump will soon clinch the GOP nomination – and offer the NY businessman their blessing. “My love for our country eclipses my loyalty to our party, and to live with a clear conscience I will not support a nominee so lacking in the judgment, temperament and character needed to be our nation’s commander-in-chief”.
