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Why Kasich and Rubio Are Helping Donald Trump: A Theory
Absent Donald Trump quitting the Republican race, there is no conceivable way John Kasich or Marco Rubio becomes the Republican nominee. At this point, both of their campaign strategies must contain the line “And then, a miracle happens.” (The same line occurs in Obama’s economic plan.) At this point, they are spoiling the race for Ted Cruz, who could actually win.
Pundits have put forth theories as to why these two are continuing in the race. They suggest that by denying an outright majority to Trump, they can create a brokered convention and end up on the ticket, even of they are not the nominee. Alternately, it may be pure ego, or delusion. But I think their continued presence is to position themselves for 2020.
There are two articles of faith within the Republican Establishment:
- Donald Trump cannot win the national election.
- Whoever places second in a year when the Republicans lose is the frontrunner for the next election
If Trump loses, it will reinforce a certain popular narrative within the GOP that outsiders can’t win and should leave elections to the experts. Trump joins Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, and Todd Akin (even though Akin was neither a Tea Partier nor an outsider, he’s thrown in to enforce The Narrative) as cautionary examples against nominating outsiders.
So, Hillary wins — many Establishment Republicans are comfortable with that — and sets the stage for 2020. Historically, the “next-in-line” Republican will be nominated. Recently, though, the second-place finishers (Huckabee in 2008 and Santorum in 2012) have been bypassed in favor of more Establishment-friendly candidates. John Kasich will be 68 in 2020 … six years younger than Bernie Sanders is today. Marco Rubio can spend four years telling people how he could have beaten Hillary but was sidelined by the Trump phenomenon.
I will posit that I think the Conventional Wisdom of the Republican Establishment is wrong on both counts. But it doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what the leadership of the Republican Party thinks, and this is what I think they think.
Published in General
With regards to Kasich, I’m partial to the “he is running in order to be Trump’s VP pick” theory.
I won’t disagree with the 2020 theory–only the Shadow knows what goes on in a politician’s mind–but I will disagree that there’s no conceivable way at this point that Rubio comes out of an open convention as the nominee. It’s unlikely, perhaps very unlikely, but in terms of “impossible,” I disagree. Also, a quibble–I don’t really think the link provided supports the thesis that many establishment Republicans are comfortable with a Clinton win.
You may indeed be right about positioning themselves for 2020, but it’s equally likely that they hope to deny Trump winner take all victories in their home states.
I would like to see the analysis that leads you to conclude that Trump could beat Hilary.
There is also something subtle going on under the surface.
The word hasn’t been uttered yet, but it’s coming: mandate.
If Trump gets less than a landslide, it will be easier to deal with him politically.
If he gets a landslide, it will be very difficult to get him to stop saying, “Everyone wanted me to be president. I have to do the following ten things. Get out of my way. I have a glorious Mandate!”
I think its wishful thinking to believe that Trump won’t believe he has a mandate even if he wins by one vote.
I’m also a subscriber to the Kasich running to be Trump’s VP theory. I support Cruz but am pretty pessimistic. Kasich can continue to run, rack up some proportional delegates, and throw them to trump At the convention. Even if trump doesn’t have all the delegates he needs, that’s why I don’t see him getting stopped. Kasich is looking to make a deal for himself. Tim
I was just sharing my thoughts on this subject with some members.
There’s good reasons for both to stay in the race, namely that they have a shot at the nomination. I particularly think Kasich is smart to stay in the race.
A brokered convention is going from probability to certainty very quickly. In that scenario, it’s a free-for-all in which the field is reshaped by who has the strongest argument for their candidacy.
I think the question is: who is the anti-Trump candidate who will also make a good November candidate. More and more, that looks like Kasich.
This depends on how it turns out in Ohio and Florida. If Kasich and Rubio both win there then I think it’s a two-man race between those two men. Maybe they become the ticket, which is what I, and others, had argued months ago because those two states are necessary to win in November.
I think Rubio and Kasich suspect that if they bow out, Trump would start winning outright majorities. And they are trying to prevent that in order to get to the convention.
They stopped trusting the electorate in their own party.
You anticipate no difficulties arising from disenfranchising all the primary participants, the majority of the GOP electorate, who voted for the two front runners?
No they don’t, particularly Kasich. As Jim Geraghty said on today’s Three Martini Lunch Kasich is a regional candidate who can’t win his region.
If that’s true how does you successfully argue that a third or fourth place showing in the primaries gives you the nomination? How do you keep Trump & Cruz voters engaged in that scenario?
Explain this statement with an argument that doesn’t include “And then a miracle occurs!” as a crucial step.
In any case, either candidate getting out before Tuesday would be an absolutely insane move, unless the goal was to give Trump the nomination. Each is the only chance to defeat Trump in his winner-take-all state.
I can’t help seeing an absolute train wreck coming. Like in Unbreakable. Only Bruce Willis will survive.
What I mean is this. The most likely outcome, in my view, is that Trump wins the nomination and then loses the general election to Clinton in a landslide.
This will not unite the Republican party or the conservative movement. Trump’s supporters will claim that he was sabotaged, absolutely sabotaged, by the GOP establishment. This will be true. I can already see the Clinton ads playing what Mitt Romney said last week about Trump’s unsuitability, and then cutting to Hillary saying: “I’m Hillary Clinton, and I approved this message.”
I don’t see any prospect of Trump winning the general election. Two more head-to-head polls are out this week showing Trump losing to Clinton by 13% and 9%.
I see little chance of the GOP uniting behind Cruz, the only other viable candidate at this point. If Trump has a lead going into the convention, but doesn’t get the nomination, then he probably runs a third-party campaign. And even if he doesn’t, I think that Trump’s supporters will feel betrayed and will mostly stay home (or write in Trump).
I see a small light at the end of this tunnel, if Rubio and Kasich drop out soon, and Cruz manages to beat Trump convincingly in the remaining one-on-one contests. This seems very unlikely to me.
Obviously, a candidate that can barely sneak out a victory in his home state (despite being able to win at most one other state) deserves the nomination.
Especially when the base is largely hostile, or at best indifferent, to them. He comes from a large swing state, and that’s all that really matters.
–sarcasm off–
Keep in mind that among GOP political “experts,” this type of thinking actually strikes them as insightful.
I think Trump could win by bringing in Democrats to replace his losses among Never Trump Republicans (like me).
If the GOP establishment is still hung up on the “it’s my turn” theory of candidate management, then I think it’s doomed to disappointment in the case, at least, of Marco Rubio. (John Kasich will be 68 in 2020, and I don’t even know if he’ll run again).
I think it’s more likely, if Rubio stays in the race much longer, that he will be absolutely destroyed, and his political career will be over. Remember, he’s not re-upping as a Senator from Florida, so he’ll be done.
He has a chance, if he stands up, exits the race and throws his support behind Cruz to look as though he’s doing everything he can, win or lose, in the most honorable way, to get rid of Trump. He’ll have put his country before himself, and people will call him Blessed.
If he hangs around, while various backroom deals are contemplated, and while GOPe luminaries swan around luxurious resorts with left-wing tech millionaires and billionaires trying to figure out how to rig the convention so that Big Ears can win (I like Marco Rubio, but this is a preposterous scenario), then Rubio’s goose will be cooked, and you can stick a fork in him, now and forever.
Come 2020, I think we’ll be taking another look at Perry, Jindal and Walker again, or Cruz, if he makes it. I think we’ll only be looking at Marco Rubio if he does the honorable thing and bails. Soon.
In a brokered convention the results of all the primaries and caucuses don’t matter. It’s a free-for-all at that point. The delegates won’t be committed to any candidate and it becomes a different kind of competition at that point.
I don’t see what’s so miraculous about Rubio winning Florida and Kasich winning Ohio. The prospect of a brokered convention is very plausible and if Trump loses those two states then it’s a certainty.
I’d also refer you to my reply to Roberto. When we’re in a brokered convention I think it’s a different ballgame at that point.
And people wonder why Trump has voters in the Republican party.
The miracle you’re banking on is that somehow in a brokered convention the delegate leader and the runner up are disregarded entirely in favor of either the distant 3rd or 4th place finishers.
If this happens the Republican party will break and anyone with even a modicum of sense can see that.
Maybe, but there’s no data supporting this. The NBC/WSJ poll out this week has Clinton leading Trump 51-38, and Trump’s negatives are overwhelming: favorable/unfavorable -39%, 25% vs. 64%. Even Clinton is only -13% (38% vs. 51%).
It just isn’t realistic that the brokered convention ploy results in anything other than the break up of the Republican Party. I think you all are deluding yourselves about being saved at the convention.
The worst possible outcome at this point would be no candidate getting a majority through the primaries. In the event where you would need to cobble together a majority at the convention, some portion of the Party would walk out and the eventual nominee would lose in a landslide. The operating assumption of the Trump voter is that the game is rigged against them by elites. What do you think happens when the game is actually rigged against them by the elites?
I have said it once and I will say it again. The only way that conservatives can maintain a party that has a chance of realizing conservative solutions at this point is to swallow the pride and back Trump. Everything else leads to the wilderness.
As long as the Republican Establishment can keep golfing at their favorite club, dining at their favorite eateries, and junketing to their favorite locations they really don’t care what happens. Trump (and Cruz) threaten to discomfit their lifestyles which is why their heads are exploding.
Don’t believe any of the national polls this cycle. They have been wrong increasingly for years now, at home and abroad. The statistical models used to create results do not properly reflect the shifting coalitions developing in the parties.
There’s nothing unprecedented about delegates switching camps. And there’s nothing miraculous about a delegate who has no interest and no obligation to vote for Trump after the first ballot to change sides.
I have no doubt that the powers that be can induce delegates to change votes as suggested on the second ballot. It would just result in the actual voters who elected those delegates bolting from the Republican Party. This electorate is different than past electorates who voted in a manner that resulted in a split convention.
These voters would burn down the Party if that happened this year.
Whatever Bereket writes on these pages merits serious consideration.
The Republican party is over. This is just the death throes. If Trump doesn’t have the magic number and this somehow gets finagled to 3rd or 4th place go ahead and hand Hillary the keys to the White House.
I don’t think Trump is as big a threat as Cruz.
In many ways, you can add Richard Mourdock to that list above. He defeated the incumbent Indiana Senator Dick Lugar, but Lugar didn’t support him right from the beginning:
My theory: they can’t stomach any Ted Cruz’s lies.
I have been categorically rejecting the idea that the convention should, and I don’t therefore think it will, produce a nominee other than Trump. The Republicans who voted for Trump in the primaries would have every reason to be permanently ticked off. They will see it as a blow to “democracy.”
But: reading the many possibilities entertained on this thread, it suddenly occurred to me–and this may actually be what Arizona Patriot was getting at–that if Trump is still polling 13 to 19 points below Hillary Clinton but Cruz or Kasich are polling better against Clinton, at that moment, the “process” demands that the convention nominate someone who is surely doomed to lose. How bizarre would be that turn of events.
Could the party faithful ever be persuaded that Trump is doomed to lose, so the party delegates have a good-faith reason to overturn the primary results?
Sigh, of course not. No one would ever believe the RNC. They would prefer to take their chances on Trump’s being able to do better than the polls were suggesting.
I’m not so sure about the accuracy of the Clinton vs. Trump polls. There are a lot of leftists who are #NeverHillary.