Ryan: GOP nominee must reject bigotry

“I’m one of those people that’s ‘anybody but Hillary or Bernie, ‘ ” said Williams, former chairwoman of the Tennessee Republican Party.

The most recent complaints about Trump seem to stem from his decision not to immediately disavow support from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Trump may be bad, but I implore my fellow liberals and enraged conservatives not to overstate.

Ben Sasse vowed never to support Trump because of his “relentless focus” on “dividing Americans”.

The same operative pointed to Trump’s 2000 interview where with NBC’s Matt Lauer where Trump called Duke “a bigot, a racist, a problem”. I pray that those who aspire to be president will solve this dilemma, before it is too late. They cause us to explicitly ask: Who are we as a people?

A Donald Trump rally in southwest Virginia on the eve of Super Tuesday turned nasty, with repeated disruptions by protesters and a scuffle between a Secret Service agent and a photographer.

Outgoing Congressman Scott Rigell has written a scathing letter warning Donald Trump could harm the Republican party. That’s not going to happen; Jeb’s campaign already tanked and he’s left the scene leaving Trump, Cruz and Rubio to duke it out.

Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, accused Trump of participating in the “coddling of repugnant bigotry”. “You can’t trust them”.

Trump was pressed further on CNN Sunday.

But then again, I’m not sure which is really more frightening: A Trump nomination, or the fact that this year’s presidential election cycle feels more like some freaky version of Whose Line Is It Anyway, where everything is made up, but the points really do matter.

If Rubio is to have any chance of mounting an effective battle with Trump for the Republican nomination, he has to get that jump-started immediately, or he is going to be a footnote when history is written about this race. He reiterated on Tuesday he would support whoever becomes the Republican nominee. That, according to Trump, cost Republicans with seniors.

For several weeks now, we’ve partnered with Good Judgment to conduct a forecasting tournament about the 2016 presidential election. On the other side, high-level Republicans are either disavowing their own party’s frontrunner or trying to figure out ways to mitigate the electoral damage they see arising from his nomination. It may be that Trump is serving as the impetus to shake up the status quo party-wide with his no holds barred approach that is resonating amazingly well with the voters. They’ve propped up weak candidates to run against stronger opponents for years; how do you think we got John McCain?

At the same time that there was a sense of resignation within some GOP quarters about Trump’s glide path to the nomination, a number of GOP strategists pointed out that the party allowed him to succeed in large part by failing to coalesce around an alternative candidate last fall. He attacks minorities, Muslims, Mexicans and other races of color. We need more people engaged in the civic life of our country – not fewer. “They could have all gotten behind one candidate”, he said.

Count Elise Jordan as a Republican who is not a fan of her party’s front-runner. But while top House GOP leaders and committee chairman are crafting legislation on a range of issues like replacing Obamacare, reforming the tax code, overhauling federal anti-poverty programs, it’s unclear any of their proposals will be embraced by Trump.

House Speaker Paul Ryan usually avoids commenting on the presidential race, often citing his role as chairman of the Republican convention.