Cowardly Republicans Hate Trump But Won’t Take A Stand Against Him

Former Reagan adviser Patrick Buchanan issued a warning to the Republican Party Thursday to throw the weight behind GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump now, or prepare to lose next year’s election to Hillary Clinton. Additionally, the Democratic National Committee argues Republicans’ reluctance to take out Trump is a sign they are embracing him and that candidates hoping to tap into the outsider fervor to advance have started to emulate the front-runner. But it doesn’t scare me.

Rep. David Lewis, a Harnett County Republican who’s on the state party’s national committee, says the GOP is working to turn out out votes regardless of the nominee. They scare me. They will not stop in their efforts to find an electable person in the next eight to 10 years who will do their bidding and return their country to them. For example, in Wisconsin, an independent candidate for president or vice president in 2016 has to obtain 2,000 to 4,000 signatures by August 2, 2016. After all, the gamut of Trump’s offensive comments, whether towards women, immigrants, the black community, or Muslims seem to be quite in step with the core demographic of the GOP.

That brings us to the numbers, which don’t mean quite what Trump says they do.

The firestorm Trump created Monday broke a quiet that Republican leaders and some establishment conservatives had worked hard to maintain for months.

Given the limits on Trump’s appeal outside his base, it can be said with near certainty that he will not be elected president.

Donald Trump is once again flirting with the idea of running as an independent, facing criticism from Republicans for his remarks regarding Muslims. Given Trump’s time frame above, all the money in the world won’t help, because all but three states have sore-loser laws that keeps failed primary candidates off of general-election ballots (a point of which Doug Mataconis reminded me this week).

He said an independent run was “highly unlikely” in an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon on Wednesday, but declined to completely rule it out, calling the pledge a “two-way street”. He shook his head as the cheers continued and he said, a third time, “We have no choice”. In 1992, Texas billionaire Ross Perot ran as an independent, & was capable of get his name on the ballot in all 50 states by mobilizing hundreds of volunteers. First, the United States basically does not have a need for millions more people.

So will he do it? “Outsiders have more credibility with voters as agents of change”, he said.

Republicans have a better hold of the House since it flipped in 2010 thanks to a Tea Party takeover, which handed former Speaker John Boehner the gavel and ripped it away from Democrat Nancy Pelosi, now the House Minority Leader. Without at least halving the field, there is no mathematic possibility of besting Trump.

“He’s doing well enough in the polls that if I were advising him, I would say, don’t run as an independent”. My disadvantage is that I’d be going up against guys who grew up with each other, who know each other intimately and I don’t know who they are, okay? “There are some things we know about Trump”.

The prix fixe three-course meal at the Source, an 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.