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Gentlemen, It’s Time to Do Your Sad Duty
Over at The Weekly Standard today, Bill Kristol put up poll results from South Carolina. Although the pollster wished to remain anonymous, Bill explained, he was unaffiliated with any of the campaigns and is both “honest” and “competent.” Here’s where his work indicates that matters now stand:
- Trump 32
- Cruz 26
- Rubio 20
- Bush 10
- Carson 7
- Kasich 2
In re which, a friend left this note in my inbox:
If Bill’s friend’s numbers are right, Jeb needs to get out of this race … for the good of the Republic.
Things are getting serious — and the phrase “for the good of the Republic” does indeed apply, does it not? And it goes without saying that if the moment has come for Jeb, then it has come as well for Dr. Carson and Gov. Kasich.
Gentlemen, it’s time.
Published in General
In Fred’s defense, I did not take your remark as a joke either. Perhaps you are taking humor lessons from Ted Cruz? ;)
It is well and truly time. Isn’t this the time when deals are cut? I know politics, but I am getting desperate. Offer Jeb, secretary of State. Carson, Surgeon General, Kasich, I don’t know–activities committee? Just get them out!!!
Who would those votes go to? It would be Rubio right? Cruz is so unlikeable. And Trump is Trump. If they wanted that, they’d be there now.
If there is a chance to save this nation from one of them… call me establishment or RINO or whatever you want. We must beat Hillary and we can’t do that until we consolidate around Rubio.
But if Cruz did drop there would be rejoicing through out the land… I like rejoicing.
While the polls as of now suggest that, I don’t think we should extrapolate quite so far in advance. First, we may be facing Sanders or Biden, not Hillary. I wouldn’t rule it out at this point, would you? And with an electorate this volatile, I wouldn’t be surprised if a non-Rubio candidate suddenly surged in popularity. But I agree it’s unlikely to be any of the hangers-on who’ve made every effort, by now, to catch public imagination — and failed.
Rubio should offer Kasich VP. It would be entertaining, win us Ohio, and be a pretty good life insurance policy.
I don’t expect to convince you. I know that a bird in the hand is worth an almost infinite number in the bush — you cannot eat what is not within your grasp. Yet a Trump victory is the negotiated settlement between not giving it to the Democrats, and giving a much-needed kick in the shorts to the Republican party. This is the offer that a forsaken base makes to a treacherous party. Note, it still even comes with an option: Support Cruz and Trump goes away.
So the base is spontaneously (not like we had a meeting) offering two options for party unity to what Murray and Codevilla describe as the ruling class on the right. After “McCain or Golgotha”, and then “Romney or Armageddon”, we are not impressed by the political elite’s effectiveness in getting this job done. They lack either the will or the skill, and it doesn’t matter which. They are out of second chances.
If anybody is embarking on electoral suicide, it is a party elite repeating the same mule-headed “mistake”, to the fury of the voters.
This is true, I suspect, for people to whom Trump is the biggest problem. That seems a bit short-sighted, a bit amnesiac. Trump didn’t break faith with the base. Rubio did, spectacularly. Bush was never welcome to run for a huge swath of us. Not just a bad bet, but actually a bad man for running, given the setting.
I could hardly give the whole argument here — it goes back a bit. Suffice to say that there is a large percentage of the base who feels that GOP business as usual is a far worse threat to the party, the country, and the Constitution. Those who continually assure us that we are overly excitable for being very alarmed at problems the GOP does not choose to work on are now screaming into deaf ears about the world ending under a single buffoonish President.
There, there.
In this discussion, as in most wherein we prognosticate support for various candidates under a range of conditions, most of what I see is projection.
“Candidate X is bad and will never gain more support than he has now, because he doesn’t have that support now. Unlike Candidate Y, whose very flatus recalls wildflowers, and whose numbers are artificially depressed by people’s allergies.”
I do find it interesting that all of the Rubio fans–or suspected Rubio fans–the past couple of days have been begging that Jeb drop out, while the Cruz fans–or the non-Rubio fans–are saying that there is still a lot of primary to go and let’s see what happens.
I would think that with all the for-suredness that the Rubio fans had about him being electable and all that, that they would have a little more faith that their boy could triumph on his own. You guys need to buck up. I hate seeing you all like this, seriously. It’s only been two bloody states for crying out loud.
BDB, I would have clicked like on this, but that would not have done it justice. You make an excellent point. There are people on here who want to tell us that things are not that bad, or as bad as we think they are. However, you let someone like Trump one step near the nomination and you would think that the 7 Seals have just opened and the Four Horsemen have descended upon the land. I find that a little odd. Trump worse than the SCOTUS ruling on homosexual marriage or the ACA? Interesting.
Given the time both parties spend playing with gasoline, matches, and debt funded welfare neither of them are making a good case for their longevity.
Why the Ted Cruz slander?
Agreed. While I do not wish to seem implacable, seeking an impossible nirvana of conservatism and consigning all lesser worlds to the flames, there is a reasonable and widespread dissatisfaction with a Supreme Court edifice so bent to the left that rulings which should be trivial in a constitutional republic are instead hailed as great victories. We struggle to retain those rights explicitly safeguarded as inviolable (“shall not be infringed” for God’s sake!), while the three-headed left-lurching dog produces new “positive” rights every time it squats.
When one branch proposes to reduce your liberty, a second blesses it, and the third actually does it, you have not been represented by the interplay of three branches, but hanged in a single tree.
I presume that is a reference to Cruz’ agonizingly awkward Trump joke at the pre-Iowa debate. Timing timing, timing.
So what is the message here for the 35-40% of the party that supports Trump?
Go away? Shut up and send money? This isn’t really a coalition, you work for us, now shut up? Interesting, and you guys call trump a fascist.
The bigger question is what do we do with the part of our country that supports Sanders. Seriously, how governable are we going to be no matter the outcome of the election? I’m growingly worried about this.
Considering we on the right are only proposing to grow the government less aggressively than Sanders I doubt they will be any more of an issue after the election than before.
Nobody is calling for ending the Department of Education gov’t loan bonanza and it is only a matter of time, next admin is my prediction, that trillion dollar debt forgiveness will be in the discussion.
It is not nihilism to point out that the ship is taking on water, and those struggling for command fear only the hammers and beams of the crew.
It is a problem, and one everybody should worry about that not just Republicans.
Before we can even get there, Republicans need to coalesce the party around a candidate. The populists are walking away with their avatar in the nomination, Rubio turned out to be a false prophet, Cruz will never effectively govern, Bush is dead to the country, Kasich is dead to everybody who would vote for him (not democrats), Carson will never win the brass ring anyway.
The never ending freak out that one of the factions other than the buckley-ites may win the nomination conveys useful information to every single other faction in the party.
Death of the republic by deporting illegal immigrants, not getting involved in unwise wars, and maintaining what are largely popular entitlements which are perceived as earned? The vernacular can bury the republic? Seriously, supposedly smart intelligent learned people are going with this!
I think before we can coalesce around a candidate I think we need to coalesce around a message and not Hillary, but less than Bernie isn’t terribly endearing.
Claire, I advocate that we take a page out of their playbook and cram our agenda of shrinking government down their throats, even if it means using only 51 votes instead of 85 in the Senate. Change the rules to get rid of the ACA so there is no filibuster. End filibusters on Judges by doing what they did.
Bottom line is you are not going to get the portion who believe in Sanders to come to us. They have to be defeated and demoralized before they will listen to our arguments. We keep trying to put the cart before the horse in this and it only ends up netting us more government and less support.
Exactly. It seems the DC GOP wants to run on Hillary sucks and we won’t be nearly as crazy as Bernie when it comes to increasing the federal government. Look, when someone wants a coke, you are not going to satisfy them with a diet coke and that seems to have been our approach to governing at the federal level since I have been paying attention–1999.
Here I was, on the sidelines, taking it seriously, nodding my head and now you tell me it is a joke? Geesh.
For it to apply and be more accurate, I would humbly suggest his friend modify the phrase to:
But that just may be the “glass if half empty and leaking like a sieve” kind of guy I am.
This is the Trump Program in a nutshell—hmmmn. Still don’t get it. This doesn’t sound like something that would get conservatives excited, but I’m new to this, so perhaps there’s a conservative principle embedded in “maintaining largely popular entitlements” that I’ve missed.
Also, Trump didn’t break faith with the base because Trump has never been elected or, for that matter, hired to do anything for the base or for anyone else. Except Trump. As soon as he is in the White House, Trump will break faith with somebody, and probably with everybody. Except Trump.
I realize this may seem like a trivial issue to some, but given how race relations have deteriorated in the past 8 years (?!?!!), whom do y’all think has the best shot at improving the actual and perceived conditions for African Americans?
I’m afraid that if Trump is nominated, Hillary will coast to victory on a “I’m not as dangerous as that guy” platform. This might actually be true. (Notice I say “might”). Or maybe an “okay, I’ll be nice to illegal immigrants but I’ll avoid unwise wars and maintain or even increase popular entitlements…two out of three ain’t bad, plus I’m not as dangerous as that guy” platform.
Obvious and not the point. if Marco Rubio sponsored a bill to give Ball Diamond Ball a million dollars, I would campaign against it because I do not trust him. I don’t mean because he’s some sort of unknown. He’s not sorry, he doesn’t repent of amnesty, he screwed us, and he’ll do it again. That’s not a vague suspicion, or a prognostication borne of a visceral dislike for some loudmouth Noo Yawkah. That’s his plan, as he says.
Rubio IS amnesty, and amnesty is destruction.
SS and Medicare are largely popular on the right. “Keep your hands off of my medicare” was 50% of the tea party.
Peter, you’ve got a lot more ‘juice’ with the people that endorsed jeb! at the start of this process (when he looked formidable) – they need to walk back those endorsements and ‘have that private talk’ with the Bush Clan.