2016 Republican Presidential Clown Car Begins!

It appears the "Anybody But Trumpers" are fracturing. Some are falling in line. The really weren't "Anybody But Trumpers". They were just there for the drama and attention. But some, how many remains to be seen, are talking about forming a 3rd party. That bears watching. It will be interesting to see where this goes. We could yet have a 3rd party this election cycle. But some serious questions remain, like who will fund this nascent movement. My best guess is it goes the way of previous 3rd parties unless they find people with very deep pockets to fund the movement.

Senior Republicans have announced they will not attend the party's convention. That's unprecedented. Senior Republicans boycotting their own party's convention, I've never seen that happen before. http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/278781-george-w-bush-to-skip-convention

 

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And it just gets worse for Republicans, today Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan (Republican) said he cannot endorse the party's presumptive nominee, Donald Trump. Ryan further questioned Trump's adherence to the Constitution. That's unprecedented. And The Donald responded with a statement that he is not willing to endorse Ryan's agenda. Wow! That is an unprecedented rift.

If that were not bad enough for Republicans, downstream Republican candidates are deeply concerned Trump will cost them their congressional seats this year.

 

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But thus far she hasn't, while many other potential Trump running mates have already ruled out running on the ticket with Trump. .

 

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Something About Cynicism, and Being Unable to Think of a Better Title

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That, too, is changing. Via the Weekly Standard↱:

New Mexico governor Susana Martinez has no desire to be tapped as Donald Trump's running mate, a spokesman tells The Weekly Standard.

"The Governor has said repeatedly over the years that she isn't interested in serving as Vice President. She appreciates that such attention puts New Mexico in the spotlight, but she is fully committed to serving the people of our state," Martinez spokesman Chris Sanchez says.​

She has yet to explicitly say it herself, and it's true I'm cynical about a lot of these statements politicians in general, and Republicans in particular, put out through the spokesteam. Still, though, she has over a year and a half left in her second term, and a humiliating electoral defeat compounded with the fact of being Trump's running mate is the sort of thing that will haunt and inhibit any further political ambitions.

And that's the thing; pretty much any running mate either knows Trump will lose, or else is the sort of true believer who won't really do anything to draw crossovers and swingers.
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Notes:

Deaton, Chris. "Susana Martinez 'Isn't Interested' in Being Trump's VP, Spokesman Says". The Weekly Standard. 5 May 2016. WeeklyStandard.com. 5 May 2016. http://bit.ly/1q2E5sI

 

Libercheeba, and Other Notes

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They need to get on it right away; the Washington Post↱, earlier this week, covered the inevitable chatter about how many Republicans will break and back Hillary Clinton:

Cruz announced hours later that he was suspending his campaign. But the continued nastiness prompted some anti-Trump Republicans to look toward a once-unthinkable prospect―undercutting the GOP nominee in ways that could make way for a Clinton presidency.

"The GOP is going to nominate for President a guy who reads the National Enquirer and thinks it's on the level," tweeted Mark Salter, a former aide to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Then he added a Clinton campaign slogan: "I'm with her."

For some Republicans, the prospect of a President Clinton is more palatable than a President Trump―not because they like Clinton, but because they could fight her on familiar terrain, rather than watching an unpredictable Trump use the power of the White House to remake the GOP.

Conservative blogger Erick Erickson, a staunch Trump critic, said he and other activists plan to hold a conference call Wednesday to discuss strategy moving forward. Among the ideas on the table is rallying behind a third-party challenger, an admittedly difficult task because of logistical hurdles involving such things as fundraising and securing spots on state ballots.

Erickson said that a more likely option would be letting Trump run and, these opponents believe, lose on his own in November.​

Erickson and his friends, though, have a hole in their logic; the departed RedState founder explained, "There are a number of us who can't bring ourselves to vote for him, and there's more and more polling showing just how badly he would cause the Republicans to lose other races", and that might be a useful consideration over time, such as looking ahead to the 2018 midterm, but I'm uncertain how, say, an Illinois Republican discouraged by Sen. Mark Kirk's decline into incoherence and at least a little annoyed that the Party decided to go after an amputee the way they did is somehow going to say, "Oh, well, Erickson isn't voting for Trump, so I feel better about voting for Kirk."

Then again, there is always the Libertarian Party, which is pretty much a place for disgruntled conservatives; they ran Bob Barr in 2008. Gary Johnson ran in 2012, and got the nod again this year; the buzz is that search engine queries, at least, have spiked dramatically in recent days. The National Review↱ article is nearly hilarious:

This being 2016, the world has gone mad, and there are no easy choices left. Johnson is a Libertarian, and that means he's for drug legalization. That's not necessarily disqualifying. After all, his views are similar to those of the founder of National Review, William F. Buckley Jr., and are shared by a number of conservatives. Johnson, however, is an actual drug user — boasting recently that he'd just consumed "Cheeba Chews," a form of "marijuana-infused taffy." (To be fair, he claims that he does not drink alcohol.) But that's not all, not by a long shot.

In 2014, Johnson became a "pot entrepreneur." He was named the CEO of Cannibas Sativa. The company's intended products included medicinal oils and — get this — a "cough drop–like" pot candy. Johnson of course tried and endorsed the product, asking, "Why would anybody ever smoke marijuana given this as an alternative?"

But let's give him the benefit of the doubt and presume for the moment that he would not, in fact, transform the Cabinet into a highbrow version of Obama's legendary "Choom Gang." Are there any other reasons to worry about Gary Johnson?​

And they've got a pretty good ballot presence, as I recall.
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Notes:

French, David. "Gary Johnson for President? The Case for — and against — the Likely Libertarian Nominee". National Review. 5 May 2016. NationalReview.com. 5 May 2016. http://bit.ly/1XbEiqT

Sullivan, Sean and Katie Zezima. "Anti-Trump Republicans confront a dilemma: Are they ready to help elect Clinton?" The Washington Post. 3 May 2016. WashingtonPost.com. 5 May 2016. http://wapo.st/26USWXP

 

I think you have to take anything the Koch's say with a grain of salt. They aren't the most honest folk. In recent years the Kochs have become very concerned about their public image. Charles Koch has even represented himself as a liberal in recent months. Koch is anything but a liberal. Begining last year the Kochs have invested heavily in advertising directed at improving their public image. I can't watch TV for more than a few minutes without seeing a Koch ad telling me how nice the Kochs are.

The Kochs are not dumb people, and they do like their money. If the Kochs spend their money on this election cycle, they will want a payback. I think the Kochs see 2016 is shaping up to be a very bad year for Republicans. So if the Kochs spend anything this year, and I expect they will, it will probably on the Senate and House races in an effort to keep Republicans in control of at least one house of congress.

Mounting a 3 rd party run isn't easy especially at this late stage, even for the Kochs. The general election is just a few months away. It could be done. But you need someone like Trump, and there aren't too many Trumps running around. You need someone with an existing brand or someone who can create a national brand in record time. Trump has a brand, a brand he has crafted over the course of the last 30 years. So I'm skeptical about a 3 rd party Republican run. But if it happens, it will benefit Democrats. It will fracture an already deeply fractured party. I don't think that fact is lost on the Kochs either.

A 3rd party Republican run would be yet another Hail Mary pass with little chance of success. But hey, I'm all for it if Republicans want to go down that route.

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And just when you think it can't get stranger, it gets stranger. Now we are seeing all these Republican former presidents, governors and congressmen who have publicly stated they they will not endorse the party's nominee (i.e. Donald Trump) and many will not attend the party's convention. WOW!.

On top of that the Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, has refused to endorse Donald Trump. Ryan wants Trump to accept Ryan's platform and reject Trump's platform which is kind of funny given Trump is the guy who has receive the most votes. This is an existential crisis for the Republican Party.

 

Republican presidential clown car - the best clown won!

 

Republicans blurred the line between entertainment and politics and now they have an entertainer as their nominee. No one could have seen that one coming...

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"But the party was broken before Trump came along, and Cruz helped to break it. In 2012, having never held elected office, he won a Texas Republican primary by branding his opponent (whose record and positions were quite conservative) a weak-willed member of the evil establishment. Arriving in Washington along with other establishment-toppling members of the Tea Party, Cruz followed through on his promises, leading the charge to shut down the government. The gambit led to a major backlash against the GOP, but it made Cruz a hero to his base. A local pastor who introduced him in Fort Wayne compared him to “the man in the picture with the tanks in Tiananmen Square”: “He would not compromise! He stopped the government!”

This obstinacy and opposition to traditional institutions was calculated to be Cruz’s calling card in the presidential primary. But he ran up against an opponent even more reckless in his approach, with none of the grounding in constitutional principle. “Ted Cruz helped create an environment where populist demagoguery would flourish on the right. Of course, he, no doubt, assumed he would be the beneficiary of this,” the conservative commentator Matt Lewis wrote. In the end, he added, “the revolution had turned on Ted Cruz, too.” And Trump, sensing the party’s weakness, steered into the breach."

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-day-the-republican-party-died/481176/

It's funny and more than a little ironic to hear Cruz complain about Trump for doing the same things Cruz did. The truth is Trump beat Canadian Ted (i.e. Raphael) at his own game.

 

And gets even more hypocritical and more ironic, who would have thought Romney would be espousing the value of releasing income tax returns. It wasn't that long ago when Romney was the Republican presidential nominee and refused to release his tax returns. Now Romney is touting the importance of releasing those same tax returns...my how things change. When you are running for POTUS and its your tax returns tax returns are not important, but when another guy runs for POTUS and you don't like him, suddenly tax returns are important...funny.

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http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-...and-results/2016/02/romney-trump-taxes-219746

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2...mitt-romney-release-tax-returns-wont-release/

 

The prediction of the Left was that the Republican establishment would generally unite behind Trump as soon as he picked up the necessary delegates and received the endorsement,

and they got a look at the polls and the electoral college, and realized they could win with this guy if they could hold it together.

It's going to be harder for some than for others, but with Clinton as the Dem nominee something will come up to permit them to make the painful decision, not lightly arrived at, that although all their earlier objections to the Donald were of course sound and reasonable nevertheless the horrible prospect of the alternative in the the light of what she did/said/threatened/ to America's freedom and security and moral standing, coupled with their respect for the choices of the American voter which they are duty bound to represent, requires them to yadda yadda - - - {perform the following act of debasement and grovelling} throw their reluctant support behind what is best for the country.

I wonder if Christie understands that being first up and deepest in doesn't get him first choice of the many valuable prizes?

 

There is a new story out today, Trump apparently use to call up reporters and plant stories about himself.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...ac99ec-16fe-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html

 

Oh, Please Do

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Jan ... freaking ... Brewer:

Donald Trump, a candidate with remarkably low approval ratings from female voters, is dropping hints that he is considering a female running mate — one who believes there is too much emphasis on women in politics.

Trump said during an interview Sunday with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren that he was narrowing down his picks for a running mate. Then he heaped compliments on former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, whom he called "fantastic."

Brewer, meanwhile, was over on CNN talking about her fatigue with "this woman thing" in politics.

(Akin↱)​

Oh ... please do.
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Notes:

Akin, Stephanie. "Trump Floats Female VP Contender Who Disparages 'Woman Thing'". Roll Call. 12 May 2016. RollCall.com. 13 May 2016. http://bit.ly/1YqfSZi

 

Well, it wouldn't surprise me if they did.

 

This is probably the strangest presidential election I have ever witnessed. The Donald refuses to release his tax returns - any of them. His excuses are blatantly bogus. I worked for one of the largest corporations in the world and we were under constant audit. We had offices set aside for tax auditors, but that never stopped us from releasing our quarterly financial statements to our shareholders and the public.

I do suspect there are some very good reasons why Trump has refused to release his tax returns but none of them are legal. They are all political. I suspect his tax returns would show us how much corporate debt his companies have and it would show us how profitable his businesses are. It could show us just how good or how bad of a businessman Trump really is, and I suspect that is why Trump doesn't want to release his tax returns and has refused to do so. It's not because he is under audit. When you are a multinational, being under audit is the norm. There are lots of taxing authorities out there who want to audit you. Every country, state, county and city where you do business may want to audit you at some point for some reason.

And now tapes have surfaced showing Trump has called reporters while using fictitious names in order to brag about himself. It appears this is an old Trump family tradition. Apparently, his dad did the same thing. His father's fictitious persona was known as Mr. Greene.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...ac99ec-16fe-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html

 

Bellowing, Blithering Cowardice

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"He feels that he doesn’t want to give out that information to the general public and have a whole nightmare situation with opposition research trying to pick holes through the return."

―Anthony Scaramucci↱​

What gets me is that Trump's support base is so zombified there is no reason to expect they would abandon him over this. He's already the epitome of what's wrong with capitalism in America; nobody whose institutional weariness includes abuses by the private sector―"corporate America"―should be looking to this devil for salvation.

It's one of the reasons this voter frustration should be viewed more responsibly, such as according to the terms of what it represents. Bernie Sanders, for instance, capitalizes on Democratic and liberal disappointment stoked over the course of a generation spent fighting to keep a liberal hand in, but perceived as not making any significant, genuine liberal progress. Donald Trump capitalizes on conservative and supremacist disappointment at not being able to install the "liberty" of a right-wing dictatorship. It is, of course, significant that the media refuses to distinguish, though perhaps we should approach such terms cautiously; refusal implies that the American news media is capable of identifying the difference, and such vital subtlety is really, really, really bad for the business model. Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, would help erase the distinction because he thinks it boosts his presidential run. Donald Trump becomes the real winner here, because he has every reason to want to identify his movement with genuine voter frustration about real issues.

The difference is important, and while it would be nice if Bernie Sanders had the courage and integrity to acknowledge it, the real problem here is everyone else.

Donald Trump is a coward.

This is how stupid the Trump movement is: The campaign is now openly pitching that Donald Trump is afraid of the political controversy↱ his tax returns will bring. And that cowardice is just fine with his supporters.

It's a classic me-not-thee argument for the supporters. For all the controversy Trump and his movement are willing to stir―even stooping to making shit up in order to excuse making an undignified spectacle of themselves―they need a free pass for their candidate because Donald Trump hasn't the courage to answer basic reality.

In a way, Bernie Sanders is in a weirdly similar boat, but the vast differences remind the absurd prospect facing such juxtapositions. To wit, generally speaking, both Trump and Sanders demand of others what they are afraid to face themselves. More particularly, though, it simply turns out what the Sanders movement can't deal with is simply that Bernie is just another politician. To the other, the Trump movement can't cope with the fact that their candidate is emblematic of everything they claim to be angry with.

On his worst day, Bernie still bears reasonable prospects for America; on his best day, Donald Trump promises wreckage. Reconciling this vandal lust and hatred with such a sterling example of a bully's cowardice tumbles Trump supporters into paroxysm; it is easier to project outcomes imagining the game show host's quaking timidity instead some sigil of boundless and unprecedented courage.

("Combat pilot? Screw you, cowardly weakling! I'll tell you about courage: I had to release my tax returns!")
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Notes:

Trudo, Hanna. "Trump clarifies position on releasing tax returns". Politico. 11 May 2016. Politico.com. 14 May 2016. http://politi.co/220WuEd

 

SOP Republican Party stance.

Trump is Reagan, just not housebroken.
http://www.youngcons.com/ronald-rea...x-returns-and-labeled-it-invasion-of-privacy/

It goes far beyond "not making progress". It involves "abetting regress". We've been watching a rollback of the New Deal abetted by both Clintons, and it looks like it's going to continue.

The weirdest thing about the Clinton Koolaid crowd is how they will babble like that, and then bitch about the hostility of Sanders's supporters.

The people like me are on record as predicting - weeks ago - that the Clinton crowd will blame Sanders for the easily predictable and predicted success or leverage Trump gains over the general campaign. Think anyone will take that bet any more?

 

Kristol Magick

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Perhaps two or three valences of armchair wonkery deeper than the average self-reporting "media savvy" consumer normally bothers with, is the obscure morbid comedy of conservative columnists. The idea of a liberal media conspiracy always seemed funny; msnbc, for instance, is emblematic, as nobody has yet to explain how firing an anti-war liberal for poor ratings when he has the highest-rated show on the network and replacing him with a retired Republican congressman means the network just shifted even further leftward; for all we hear about the Gray Lady being in the tank, what are we supposed to think of Bill Kristol, David Brooks, and other prominent conservative columnists who have lasted years in allegedly hostile territory? It always seemed strange to me, when I was younger, how people lamented the "liberal media bias" when all the "serious" commentary in my local newspapers backed conservative politics, and anyone more liberal was a specialty writer. The internet generation is too young to remember, but there was a time when one looked forward to Dave Barry's semi-absurdist column because it was a break from George F. Will, Mike Royko, William Saletan, William Buckley, and others.

Bill Kristol was in government back then; he established his political and conservative bona fides as Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States, for which The New Republic crowned him Quayle's Brain. Over the years, liberals have poked at his track record. The political brain of Vice President Potatoe? Between his time spent working for Daniel Moynihan and hanging out with Alan Keyes, guess where Kristol's political acumen landed him? Oh, right. We don't need to guess. It's a dangerous sport, though, laughing at a career built on being dazzlingly pretentiously wrong; Kristol is influential despite his poor track record.

Besides, in this cycle we're all trying very hard to not laugh at David Brooks, who appears to be suffering some manner of existential rupture, which in turn results in agonizing, nearly-delusional columns that tell us more about the author's state of mind than the ostensible political subject matter. It truly is an astounding meltdown; we should be cautious, though, because it simply isn't appropriate to laugh at human crisis.

Still, though, there is Kristol, who does not want to feel left out.

Steve Benen↱ explains the setup:

It was late last year when Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, "a member of the Republican firmament," first started talking publicly about recruiting a Republican presidential candidate to run a third-party campaign against Donald Trump. There were all kinds of hurdles, but one in particular tormented the GOP pundit: finding a candidate.

Kristol wanted a national contender, but Mitt Romney said no. He would have settled for an experienced presidential candidate, but Rick Perry said no. He turned his attention to sitting senators, but Ben Sasse said no. He looked at former senators, but Tom Coburn said no. He eventually moved past elected officials and sought out a military leader, but retired Gen. James Mattis said no.

And so, Kristol lowered his sights just a little more―and found a political blogger who appears to have said yes.​

This really has been a weird saga of apparent political logic versus observable market reality. That is to say, the idea isn't so awful in its abstract context, but, you know, seriously? To the one, where are they going to find a candidate to draw off enough votes from Republicans? To the other, therein lies the question. Robert Costa↱ of the Washington Post described that the "campaign would almost surely be a quixotic endeavor that could draw pockets of Republican voters away from Donald Trump", yet also noted that, "Kristol and others remain convinced that many conservatives nationally are unwilling to vote for Trump or likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, and he has been searching for weeks to see if someone would step up and serve as their standard-bearer". It's well enough to draw off pockets of Trump's Republican support, but this really is just about stopping Donald Trump, which kind of makes for a hard pitch: If you're a Republican who doesn't like Trump but won't vote for Hillary Clinton, vote for this blogger over here, which will help Hillary Clinton get elected but at least you didn't actually vote for her. Conservatives often show some trouble comprehending the basics of the Rubio principle↱, so named for its particular iteration that, "In essence, not voting for it is a vote against it".°

In the end, it seems a weirdly aesthetic appeal; the idea is that one is okay with Hillary Clinton being president but afraid to admit it.

And this weirdness only grows as we consider the detail; Costa, for his part, ends up reporting on a colleague from his former job:

Tennessee attorney David French, who in recent years has become a prominent right-wing writer, is being urged by some conservative leaders to make a late entry into the 2016 presidential race as an independent candidate, according to two people close to him.

William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard magazine and a former Republican White House official, is at the fore of the draft effort. A group of well-known evangelical leaders and GOP operatives is also involved in the discussions, the people said, requesting anonymity to discuss private conversations.​

Benen sketches the overview:

We're a long way from the point at which French, a National Review blogger, might expect to receive endorsements―he hasn't officially entered the race―but Mitt Romney offered a hint of tacit support yesterday afternoon, saying via Twitter, "I know David French to be an honorable, intelligent and patriotic person. I look forward to following what he has to say." Conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt endorsed the sentiment soon after.

At the risk of sounding unkind, I think it's fair to say French is a presidential longshot. His party and political operation don't exist; he'll struggle with ballot-access deadlines for independent candidates; outside of National Review readers, he's largely an anonymous figure; though Kristol has extensive contacts in far-right fundraising, French has no campaign war chest; and he's appealing to anti-Trump Republican voters―a contingent that polls suggest is a tiny slice of the electorate.​

‡​

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Remember, for anti-Trump Republicans, the goal wasn't just to find any constitutionally eligible person to serve as a sacrificial lamb. If it were, Kristol and his allies could have just embraced Gary Johnson's Libertarian ticket or the right-wing Constitution Party.

What Kristol and his cohorts needed, however, was a specific kind of Republican: someone who could appeal to #NeverTrump neoconservatives and #NeverTrump evangelicals simultaneously. And by this measure, if no other, David French―an Iraq war veteran, neocon pundit, staunch social conservative, and former employee at a variety of far-right organizations, including TV preacher Pat Robertson's legal outfit―checks the appropriate boxes.​

This is one of those times when we might pause to consider "conservative elitism". In a year finding little support, or even mere traction, for the GOP Establishment, an Establishment columnist thinks ... what? ... that he can sell Republican voters on an Establishment-backed alternative to the market resolution?

Many people on all sides of the proverbial aisle will testify to the necessity of stopping Donald Trump; it's just that Mr. Kristol's endeavor seems particularly futile except for the part where he gets to pretend he feels like a leader in conservative politics. For such pampered privilege as Mr. Kristol has enjoyed in the political marketplace, the sting of irrelevance probably hurts somethin' fierce. Still, Kristol's presumptuousness ought to mean something; it seems somehow demonstrative of an essential abstraction―the complications of cooperation among a league of competitive individualists.

It just seems that by the time we're down to an Establishment political blogger with military service credentials because even Rick Perry said no, this is an exercise in petulance, not some well-crafted advice from a longtime political sage of alleged legendary prowess.
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Notes:

° There is a difference, for instance, between wilful abstention on the record and simply not showing up to work because you hate your job; that would be Mr. Rubio's deployment of the principle. In the U.S. Senate, refusing to advise and consent is asserted to be the same as hearing, advising, and explicitly recording a refusal of consent. And as much as we might question the validity of such iterations, they are far different from the practical reality that Mr. Kristol's third-party candidate is not going to win, and won't be drawing many Democratic votes.​

Benen, Steve. "Bill Kristol finds his anti-Trump Republican". msnbc. 1 June 2016. msnbc.com. 1 June 2016. http://on.msnbc.com/25AFXMN

Costa, Robert. "Conservative Tennessee attorney David French is urged to enter presidential race as independent". The Washington Post. 31 May 2016. WashingtonPost.com. 1 June 2016. http://wapo.st/1t1tsJg