Thursday, March 17, 2016

THE TIME IS NOW. THE NEED IS CRITICAL. OUR COURSE OF ACTION MUST BE ... UM, WHATEVER.

Politico reports from that gathering of Donald Trump opponents convened by Erick Erickson and other conservatives, and yes, they seem determined to act:
A group of conservative leaders and activists, including RedState.com founder Erick Erickson and former George W. Bush adviser Bill Wichterman, called for the formation of a GOP “unity ticket” on Thursday to stop Donald Trump from becoming the 2016 Republican nominee....

"He shouldn’t be president of the United States,” said Quin Hillyer, a conservative columnist who emerged from the meeting as the new spokesman for the two dozen or so people who attended. He called the mood inside the room “resolute."
"Resolute"? How resolute?
"The consensus was that we need a unity ticket of some sort and we’ll let the candidates work out who the unity ticket is,” [Hillyer] said. "Obviously, more conservatives seem to prefer Cruz to Kasich, and Cruz has more delegates right now, so if you do the math, it’s probably more likely to be Cruz-Kasich.”

But he went on to say that the unity ticket possibilities, and support for that ticket, should include both current and former candidates.
Wow, that's ... not very resolute.

I remember being told at the beginning of the month that Republicans had two weeks to stop Trump's march to the nomination. That was two weeks and two days ago. Trump's still marching -- and even the people who most desperate to stop him continue to have no plan.

These guys, at least, have settled on the idea of a unity ticket, which they think should probably be Cruz-Kasich ... but they'll "let the candidates work out who the unity ticket is." Maybe it should be Kasich-Cruz. Or maybe it should include candidates who've dropped out -- you know, those fourteen other folks who ran. So many possible combinations!

What are the Trump-haters in the GOP waiting for? When is somebody going to come up with a serious, specific plan? By the time they finally figure out what they want to do, Trump will be in Cleveland accepting the nomination. They're hopeless.

10 comments:

Frank Wilhoit said...

After the convention, each of them, and all the other nevertrumpers, will be busting their asses to get him elected. This includes participating in his incitement.

Every single one of them. No exceptions.

jsrtheta said...

"Hey, you got your Cruz on my Kasich!"

"No, you got some Kasich on my Cruz!"

jsk said...

IF Sam Wang's math is right (and who am I to dispute it?), Kasich would actually have a better chance of being the nominee if he dropped out now. If all three candidates stay in, Trump probably wins enough winner-take-all states with pluralities to clinch the nomination, so Kasich achieves nothing. (Worse than nothing, if his goal is to stop Trump.) If it's just Trump and Cruz, those states will likely be split, and nobody comes to the convention with a majority, which conceivably might make the party turn to Kasich as the compromise candidate.

Unknown said...

Or perhaps they are just making it seem like they don't want Drumpf elected. If they wail and gnash their teeth enough they can make it a good showing at least.

AllieG said...

These guys are the party hangers-on, not people with any real power to make things happen (like Cruz and Kasich agreeing who should be 1 and who should be 2). What has them in a panic is their knowledge that in a Trump administration, they'd be on the outside looking in just as much as if there's a Clinton administration -- actually, they'd be even more frozen out. At least under Hillary there'd be a spot in the mighty opposition noise chorus for them.

Victor said...

How about the GOP version of Laurel & Hardy:

Rubio & Christie?

'That's another fine mess you've gotten us into, Marco!'

Anonymous said...

They're a small pile of nothing, but at least before Trump (BT) they could cosplay as Important People, pretending to themselves that their words had Meaning and Affected Events. Now, they're forced to face the fact that they are a small pile of nothing and nobody important cares about them in the slightest. I agree with Frank at the top. History tells us that after their minor and quickly-forgotten uprising, they'll crawl back to the GOP HQ desperate for some sort of hanger-on post; perhaps even getting to be junior assistant hippy puncher.

Professor Fate said...

They are going to link him to Benghazi. That'll do it.

Ten Bears said...

Well of course, Prof, he is Bill and Hillary's best idea ever.

Ken_L said...

As anyone knows who's followed their reactions to international affairs for any length of time, Republicans don't do co-operation and consistency.