Trump cheats at golf - the ONE and ONLY politics thread

You know the ancient Hollywood joke about the starlet who ruined her career by appearing in a movie? That was Marco Rubio. A great candidate on paper, a terrible one in three-dimensional reality.

 

This morning I hear that the establishment was going to get together later this week to decide what to do.

It reminded me of a post-game interview I once had with an athletic director after the last game of a disastrous football season. Everyone was calling for the coach's head, and the AD kept hemming and hawing about when they would meet.

Finally, someone said, "This is the future of the program. You're acting like you'll talk the next time you guys happen to run into each other at the lunch buffet."

That's the GOP.

 

Something tells me this ad, funded by the Ricketts, will be recycled by HRC.

 

Trump supporters are the gentlest angels - unless he doesn't get the nomination.

Trump warns of riots if denied Republican presidential nomination

 

I say this as an Independent voter, but depends on the equation used, IMO.

For the "party establishment" (however one defines that) ,if Trump becomes the nominee, it essentially marks the end of the Republican party. It's a hostile take over by the lunatic fringe.

Denying him the nomination, on the other hand, is essentially "throwing" this presidential election. However, it may give the "establishment" / party core, a hope of cobbling together SOME semblance of a functional party, moving into the future. It's retreating from the battle, to regroup and reinforce, before you're destroyed as a fighting force.

 

Is your friend the former SE in Ashtabula?

 

The Supreme Court announcement seems specifically timed to cut off the Trump Wins news cycle.

It's funny, because Hillary won big, too. But Obama realizes where the media gets its oxygen these days.

 

Yep, I find it difficult to swallow that the GOP elites who are criticising Trump on every level will be able to walk back those statements en masse. I think they'd rather do whatever they can to stop him...even if doing that means cratering the 2016 election. Because like you note, it allows them to regroup starting in January and moving forward with their nonsensical agenda again.

Other than the 2016 election, what do the elites have to lose by pulling the nuclear option in Cleveland? It's not likely that Trump is the sort to bang around the party for another 3 years and then run again. And if he goes the Teddy R Bull Moose route, he'll have similar results as 1912: HRC will get 42, Trump 27 and Romney 23 %.

 

Exit polls yesterday had roughly half, and more than half in some states, of Republican voters saying they felt "betrayed" by their party. That may be lunatic (it's hard to see how the party could have done more to oppose Obama), but it's no fringe.

 

The "establishment" can't afford to let Trump be a third party candidate. Every congressperson and 34 Senators are up for election, and every Republican candidate would then be forced to take a position on Trump-no Trump. Those who stuck with the convention selected candidate could expect that Trump wouldn't take it very well and would directly urge his supporters not to vote for those candidates.

 

I don't know. The absolute best-case scenario is that the party disenfranchises millions and millions of voters. That's not something easily undone or made up for.

 

Exactly. The risk of those voters then casting "revenge sex" votes for Democrats or even just staying home is too great to take.