Plan B Forum

If Trump is nominated, the GOP must keep him out of the White House

Donald Trump’s damage to the Republican Party, although already extensive, has barely begun. Republican quislings will multiply, slinking into support of the most anti-conservative presidential aspirant in their party’s history. These collaborationists will render themselves ineligible to participate in the party’s reconstruction.

Ted Cruz’s announcement of his preferred running mate has enhanced the nomination process by giving voters pertinent information. They already know the only important thing about Trump’s choice: His running mate will be unqualified for high office because he or she will think Trump is qualified.

Hillary Clinton’s optimal running mate might be Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio,[regular readers of this space will recall that I pointed out Brown some time ago as a logical VP choice for Slick Hillie] a pro-labor populist whose selection would be balm for the bruised feelings of Bernie Sanders’s legions.

Running mates rarely matter as electoral factors: In 2000, Al Gore got 43.2 percent of the North Carolina vote. In 2004, John Kerry, trying to improve upon Gore’s total there, ran with North Carolina Sen. John Edwards but received 43.6 percent. If, however, Brown were to help deliver Ohio for Clinton, the Republican path to 270 electoral votes would be narrower than a needle’s eye.

Republican voters, particularly in Indiana and California, can, by supporting Cruz, make the Republican convention a deliberative body rather than one that merely ratifies decisions made elsewhere, some of them six months earlier.

A convention’s sovereign duty is to choose a plausible nominee who has a reasonable chance to win, not to passively affirm the will of a mere plurality of voters recorded episodically in a protracted process. [Huzzah!]

Trump would be the most unpopular nominee ever, unable to even come close to Mitt Romney’s insufficient support among women, minorities and young people. In losing disastrously, Trump probably would create down-ballot carnage sufficient to end even Republican control of the House. Ticket splitting is becoming rare in polarized America: In 2012, only 5.7 percent of voters supported a presidential candidate and a congressional candidate of opposite parties.

At least half a dozen Republican senators seeking reelection and Senate aspirants can hope to win if the person at the top of the Republican ticket loses their state by, say, only four points, but not if he loses by 10. A Democratic Senate probably would guarantee a Supreme Court with a liberal cast for a generation.

If Clinton is inaugurated next Jan. 20, Merrick Garland probably will already be on the court — confirmed in a lame-duck Senate session — and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer will be 83, 80 and 78, respectively.

The minority of people who pay close attention to politics includes those who define an ideal political outcome and pursue it, and those who focus on the worst possible outcome and strive to avoid it. The former experience the excitements of utopianism, the latter settle for prudence’s mild pleasure of avoiding disappointed dreams. Both sensibilities have their uses, but this is a time for prudence, which demands the prevention of a Trump presidency.

Were he to be nominated, conservatives would have two tasks. One would be to help him lose 50 states — condign punishment for his comprehensive disdain for conservative essentials, including the manners and grace that should lubricate the nation’s civic life. Second, conservatives can try to save from the anti-Trump undertow as many senators, representatives, governors and state legislators as possible.


If Trump is nominated, Republicans working to purge him and his manner from public life will reap the considerable satisfaction of preserving the identity of their 162-year-old party while working to see that they forgo only four years of the enjoyment of executive power.

Six times since 1945 a party has tried, and five times failed, to secure a third consecutive presidential term. The one success — the Republicans’ 1988 election of George H.W. Bush — produced a one-term president. If Clinton gives her party its first 12 consecutive White House years since 1945, Republicans can help Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, or someone else who has honorably recoiled from Trump, confine her to a single term.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html

Trump probably would create down-ballot carnage sufficient to end even Republican control of the House.

If Trump is nominated, the GOP must keep him out of the White House

Gob wrote:

If Trump is nominated, the GOP must keep him out of the White House

American politics, sheesh....

Loyal Republicans Are Worried, Angry

By Debra J. Saunders

Cable news pundits often warn that Republicans have to respect the righteous anger of Donald Trump supporters. They forget the other angry Republican voters — the many folks I saw at California's Republican convention in Burlingame over the weekend who have been loyal GOP votes. They've gone to the lunches and supported candidates for down-ticket races. They care about conservative values; they know how it is important to win general elections. And they're furious that their party is being hijacked by a rump of unreliable voters who think that just because they showed up at a rally, they are entitled to special treatment.

It kills me. This could have been the year when Republicans took back the White House. Instead, it may be the year GOP primary voters handed the election to Hillary Clinton, a dishonest, self-serving political animal and the second-least liked person in the race. [Let the church say AMEN!]

Trump fans think that because Trump trounced the competition in most GOP primaries, he can win in November. They don't care if Gallup reports that 70 percent of women don't like Trump. His net favorable/unfavorable rating among women is minus 47 percent. They know women who like Trump. They point to Clinton's minus 3 percent net negative rating among women. That's the statistic they trust.

On June 7, California will offer the last stand to stop Trump from winning the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nod. Because California's system awards all but 13 of its 172 delegates to each winner in the state's 53 congressional districts, the stop-Trump movement is telling state Republicans to vote for Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas or Ohio Gov. John Kasich — whichever candidate looks likelier to win one's particular district. (How can you tell? Watch for which GOP rival generates the most campaign mail.)

On Friday night, Kasich gave the standout speech at the convention. It's too bad he wasn't addressing a full house, as I saw a candidate who understands economic insecurity and the fear that haunts working-class families with no political connections or clout. I saw the Republican who fares best against the presumptive Democratic nominee.

GOP pros have been watching Trump stomping all over the slim chances of a party on life support. In the first three months of 2016, California registered 850,000 new voters — twice as many voters as it registered in the same period in 2012.

Yes, GOP registration is up. But political data guru Paul Mitchell wrote in Capitol Weekly that the state has seen a "doubling of registration growth among Latinos, and a more than 150 percent increase for some young voters, and a near-tripling for Democrats." That's why many GOP political pros will not vote for Trump in June — or November.

Were he to be nominated, conservatives would have two tasks. One would be to help him lose 50 states — condign punishment for his comprehensive disdain for conservative essentials, including the manners and grace that should lubricate the nation’s civic life. Second, conservatives can try to save from the anti-Trump undertow as many senators, representatives, governors and state legislators as possible.

wesw wrote: it isn t your party anymore , bucko. it s Ours.

wesw wrote:it isn t your party anymore , bucko. it s Ours.

I do think that a Trump presidency could go a long way to getting more left leaning congressmen and senators elected

wesw wrote:
it isn t your party anymore , bucko. it s Ours.

MajGenl.Meade wrote:LJ, doesn't having someone on "ignore" mean (a) no peeking and (b) no responding even if someone else quotes it?

wes--if you don't like Will's writing, so be it. But the idea is distinct from the messenger.

Kasich dropping out of presidential race

John Kasich is dropping his presidential bid, according to a senior campaign adviser, one day after Donald Trump became the presumptive nominee and Ted Cruz bowed out of the race.

The Ohio governor had long ago been mathematically eliminated from clinching the GOP nomination outright but had hoped to emerge as a consensus candidate at a contested convention.

Ultimately, Kasich outlasted nearly all of his rivals but can claim to have beaten few of them. He won only one contest — his home state of Ohio — during the primary season, and his final tally of 153 delegates puts him fourth in the race behind Marco Rubio, who dropped out in mid-March.

Kasich had said Tuesday night that he would keep fighting, but after Cruz suspended his campaign and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus declared Trump the presumptive nominee, Kasich apparently decided to end his bid.

Kasich had been expected to talk with reporters this morning at Washington Dulles International Airport before embarking on what his campaign termed a full day of finance events in Maryland and Virginia. But the campaign later canceled the briefing and scheduled a news conference at 5 p.m. in Columbus, Ohio.

Jim--you think the republicans might actually get back some John Lindsays, Charles Goodells, or Clifford Cases

Long Run wrote:There will be three general types of Republicans going forward to November: (1) those who get behind the nominee, with varying degrees of enthusiasm; (2) those that sit on their hands; and (3) those that actively oppose the nominee. The latter two categories are unique to this nominee in recent elections. Has a candidate ever won without having the party "base" support?