From
Nov. 13, 2015 Washington Post:
Less than three months before the kickoff Iowa caucuses,
there is growing anxiety bordering on panic among Republican elites
about the dominance and durability of Donald Trump and Ben Carson and
widespread bewilderment over how to defeat them.
Party
leaders and donors fear that nominating either man would have negative
ramifications for the GOP ticket up and down the ballot, virtually
ensuring a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency and increasing the odds
that the Senate falls into Democratic hands....
Before Tuesday’s debate in Milwaukee, Republican National Committee
Chairman Reince Priebus and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker had a reception
at the Pfister Hotel with party leaders, donors and operatives. There
was little appetite for putting a political knife in the back of either
Trump or Carson, according to one person there. Rather, attendees simply
hoped both outsiders would go away.
There are similar concerns
about Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who is gaining steam and is loathed by
party elites, but they are more muted, at least for now.
And they are talking about drafting Romney!
They could be right. Trump has huge baggage, and is very doubtful as a real conservative. He could implode. Carson is an outsider who could possibly go wonky.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, it's also very possible that a "conventional" candidate would turn off the conservative base and lose badly too, but a radical could win huge.
It's getting to be like William Goldman's comment on Hollywood conventional wisdom: “Nobody knows anything... Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess and, if you're lucky, an educated one.”
At least Trump isn't dependent on his donor base like all Democrats and most Republicans.
ReplyDelete