Wednesday, March 16, 2016

THESE FOLKS WILL NEVER SETTLE ON A PLAN TO BLOCK TRUMP

Today's Republican anti-Trump plan comes from John Boehner:
Former Speaker John Boehner said Paul Ryan should be the Republican nominee for president if the party fails to choose a candidate on the first ballot.

"If we don't have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I'm for none of the above," Boehner said at the Futures Industry Association conference here. "They all had a chance to win. None of them won. So I'm for none of the above. I'm for Paul Ryan to be our nominee."
Except that Ryan is not on board with this plan:
Speaker Paul Ryan said in an interview there is "no situation" in which he will accept the Republican Party's presidential nomination this year, his firmest rejection of the fanciful notion that he'd be drafted during a contested GOP convention.

"I've been really clear about this," Ryan told POLITICO Wednesday. "If you want to be president, you should run for president. We should select our nominee from among the people who are running for president. Clear and simple. So no, I am not going to be the president. I am not going to be the nominee."

Ryan added, "I am not going to become the president through Cleveland."
Yesterday, this was the plan:
Three influential leaders of the conservative movement have summoned other top conservatives for a closed-door meeting Thursday in Washington, D.C., to talk about how to stop Donald Trump and, should he become the Republican nominee, how to run a third-party “true conservative” challenger in the fall.

The organizers of the meeting include Bill Wichterman, who was President George W. Bush’s liaison to the conservative movement; Bob Fischer, a South Dakota businessman and longtime conservative convener; and Erick Erickson, the outspoken Trump opponent and conservative activist who founded RedState.com.
Wichterman was on Mitt Romney's "Faith and Values" steering committee in the 2008 campaign; he was recruited away from Fred Thompson's campaign because Romney was supporting an anti-gay marriage amendment to the Constitution and Thompson wasn't. Wichterman was involved with the Values Action Team, a religious right group in Congress that was linked to the Family Research Council. Fischer also has FRC ties. And Erickson increasingly mixes faith in Jesus with his usual political smashmouth.

So these guys are looking for a third-party candidate rather than a brokered-convention candidate, presumably a Christian-y one.

Meanwhile, Bill Kristol is also having a range third-party fantasies, mostly involve neocons, political ingenues, and even a Supreme Court justice:



General Kelly gets props from Kristol, presumably, for his critique of the move to open combat roles to women, or maybe because he's taken to hiding Guantanamo priaoners from journalists. Pompeo is on Kristol's list because he's suggested that the military defy a direct order from commander in chief Obama regarding transfer of prisoners from Gitmo.



Cotton, of course, is freshman Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, a Kristol and Sheldon Adelson favorite who was the driving force behind a treasonous open letter to Iranian leaders that was meant to undermine the recent nuclear deal. Hes's 38 years old.

Kristol retweets this:



Pompeo? Kelly? Cotton? Clarence Thomas? Greg Abbott? Kristol and the rest of these guys are playing fantasy football. They're not serious-minded, and they'll never knuckle down and settle on a plan they can all agree on, either for a brokered convention or a third-party alternative, any more than they could settle on an establishment favorite for the primaries.

So forget it -- it doesn't matter whether Trump falls short of a delegate majority. He'll be the GOP nominee, and no party-favorite Republican will get a ballot line to run against him.

10 comments:

Lawrence said...

Clarence Thomas? At least the SOTU will be short.

Feud Turgidson said...

Not as short as when Scalia was alive!

[rimshot]

The more I see stuff of this ilk from Bill Kristol, the more I wonder about whether he's just a mental defective with good grammar.

AllieG said...

Do Republican pols really return his phone calls, emails and tweets, or does he make that all up? God, I'd have my secretary tell Kristol I had died suddenly before I'd listen to his bright ideas.

Victor said...


Tom Cotton is the choice for conservative 'MORANS!!!" who think Booby Jindall is too liberal, and whose neck is too much like an NFL lineman's!

Oh, Bill Kristol, your are the most under appreciated comedy genius of our age!!!

Ten Bears said...

If I recall correctly, the first time Clinton was "elected" Ross Perot (and Donald Trump) ran a third party candidacy that split the Retard vote. Now tell me again this isn't a scripted kombutki theater rigged to Hillary's favor.

Unknown said...

It would take an act of courage for the GOP convention to steal the nomination from Trump. We can therefore be confident that it won't happen.

RAM said...

I'm all in on Clarence Thomas. Anything to get that idiot off the Supreme Court.

sdhays said...

Will they settle on a plan to back Trump? Or will they continue dithering completely through November? Continued dithering itself could cost the Republican Party a lot. Of course, going all in could cost it even more too. Or not. What's a stupid pundit or plutocrat to do???

Unknown said...

Pompeo? Kelly? Cotton? Clarence Thomas? Greg Abbott? Kristol and the rest of these guys are playing fantasy football. They're not serious-minded,

It's a rhetorical question, but why does Kristol have any media presence or voice at all at this point? He's Glenn-Beck crazy, a complete joke. Fantasy football indeed.

Professor Fate said...

I'm reading this and all I can hear in my head is:
ARTHUR: What happens now?

BEDEMIR: Well, now, uh, Lancelet, Galahad, and I wait until nightfall,
and then leap out of the rabbit, taking the French by surprise -- not only by surprise, but totally unarmed!

ARTHUR: Who leaps out?

BEDEMIR: Uh, Lancelot, Galahad, and I. Uh, leap out of the rabbit, uh
and uh....

ARTHUR: Oh....

BEDEMIR: Oh.... Um, l-look, if we built this large wooden badger--