I said this November 15 last year. That’s more than fourteen weeks ago when TV pundits were still treating Donald J. Trump’s candidacy for the presidency as an aberration. As everyone realizes now, it’s not. He’s not only steadily picking up support among Republican voters, he is now taken seriously by Republican leadership. In fact, they are freaking out. Reince Priebus had a meeting a couple of months ago to marshal his forces to stop the Trump juggernaut. We haven’t heard much more about that from the RNC, have we? He and and his minions are still committed to denying the nomination to the flamboyant billionaire, even if The Donald is the consensus choice of Republican rank-and-file. However, hope is fading for them to pull that off.
We know that Trump is now consolidating his lead and closing in on a lock for his party’s nomination because stopping him is the only active issue for his rivals. Consider how all the still-viable Republican hopefuls are not doing much else beyond trying to differentiate themselves from Trump. It’s not working because they can’t come up with any more extreme or inflammatory rhetoric than the crafty demagogue.
Let’s recap the remaining occupants of the clown car. I admit that I put off doing this until Bush quit. I couldn’t stand talking about that mealy-mouthed hypocrite. Every time he popped up on TV, I kept harkening back the Terry Schiavo fiasco. But, there are four people left besides Trump, so let’s check it out.
- Ben Carson? Bwa-ha-ha! This guy faded so fast that those of us who take a couple days off from agonizing over this crap completely missed it when he fizzled. Republicans tried to bravely pretend that he wasn’t a self-aggrandizing, pompous ass, but finally it became painfully obvious. You don’t elect someone president because they used to be a doctor and now makes a living by promoting his autobiography. I mean, that portrait of him with Jesus standing behind him and Jesus’s hand on his shoulder. Are you serious? And a vegetarian, just like Hitler? Come on!
- Rafael Edward Cruz (I refuse to call him “Ted”) is damaged goods. He has no appeal outside of foaming-at-the-mouth fundamentalist Protestants who hate gay people and “furriners” in general. He is sneaky, weird and no one really likes him, even Republicans. Nominating him would be a disaster as Republicans would defect to the Democrats because they don't want to elect a Canadian, or a Cuban, or whatever. This would be the convenient excuse to abandon him, but the real reason would be basic dislike and abhorrence of his policies.
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Marco Rubio is not really presidential timber, but he would make a good running mate. He doesn’t know anything about foreign policy, economics, political history, medical ethics or Constitutional law, but, hey, he sure does learn his lines well. Is it just me, or does everything about him scream “Punk!” or “Twerp!” when you see this little weasel strutting around and acting like a real grownup? Rubio would do better in the general election than Cruz would, but that's not saying much.
- John Kasich is the Republicans' best bet. This guy is smooth and could easily emerge as the "reasonable" alternative to Trump. Assuming he pulls that off and snags his party's nomination, all he has to do to win the election is to con the gullible swing vote into believing that he is not an anti-abortion crank and a corporatist tool. He is, you know, despite all his compassionate blather. That would be hard sledding. The Democrats, pushing their own nominee, be it she (Clinton) or he (Sanders), will savage Uncle John's congressional and gubernatorial records and point out that he has never been "reasonable" at all, and has been babbling the same old, tired Republican rhetoric that has been so thoroughly discredited by Nobel Prize winners in economics and anyone else who speaks truth to power. While he might get closer to winning than any other Republican this year, he would still lose.
But, let’s talk a little more about Rubio, because he’s the “bum of the week” trying to derail Trump as the now all but inevitable nominee. I can’t see any realistic basis for expecting him to get the better of Trump other than desperation and wishful thinking. What are they thinking? Maybe, this.
Yes, that's right, Republicans. Marco Rubio is your conservative savior, the kind of clean-cut, right-thinking, energetic person you need to electrify the electorate and install a cadre of pious, benevolent theocrats to restore the God-given right of a tiny cohort of rich people (especially corporate persons) to own everything and operate the nation as a machine to extract its wealth for their sole benefit.
Let's dispense with the veil of sarcasm and try to look at this realistically. Marco Rubio is the perfect candidate for those who think as one might if the preceding paragraph sounds reasonable, but not very many people do. He only appeals to about 40% of Republicans, and only about half of them are voting for him now. The other half are still voting for someone else. If these other guys drop out, and their supporters all go to Rubio, then he could assemble enough support to put him over the top and deny Trump the nomination.
That's the key it, denying Trump rather than getting Trump supporter to switch over. No one who supports Trump would go for any other Republican until that other Republican has a lock on the nomination. Trump's their guy and they are holding out until he's out of the running. If Rubio can surge to the front of the anti-Trump pack and subsume most of such support, then he might tip the balance in his favor and get the nomination.
Trump will get some of the delegates and supporters pledged to candidates other than Trump or Rubio as they drop out, but Rubio will get most of these because they are largely anti-Trump votes. The vote on the convention floor for the nomination will be close.
Assuming, for the sake of speculation, that Rubio prevails at his party's convention, he has to pivot sharply on several issues to have a prayer at winning in the national election. Suddenly, he has to appeal to voters who want health care, abortion rights, LGBT rights, a living wage, fair taxation, reigning in financial speculation, free higher education, de-militarization of the police, ending mass incarceration, immigration reform that decriminalizes undocumented people, fewer foreign entanglements, ending the war on drugs and legalized cannabis.
Rubio hates all that, and no one, and I mean no one who strongly opposes him on any of those issues will vote for him over a Democrat who opposes the fresh-faced Marco on all or most of those issues. In other words, Rubio's current stance alienates all Democrats and most of the independents. He might pull in a smattering of rabid anti-gay, anti-everything nutballs who oppose anything compassionate, and who are not already voting Republican. Unfortunately, that's a negligible number of people. In fact, he'll lose some of the racist vote because he's, you know, Hispanic! I put his crossover appeal at close to nothing. This means he loses big in November.
So, which Republican would fare better? Trump is one. He has cornered the market in drawing in the stupid vote. Review your circle of acquaintances, people you know personally. Isn't every last one of those you would classify as loud-mouthed, insufferable boors already a Trump supporter? Yep. I thought so.
Now, as we know, not all slope-browed, drooling cretins are registered Republicans. Those few who think of themselves as Democrats might very well defect en masse to the Republicans if they nominate Trump. A fair number of the truly stupid call themselves "independents", the modern euphemism for people who are incapable of forming a coherent opinion in political matters, despite the plethora of information readily available in this modern information age. (How stupid do you have to be to not understand the differences between Democrats and Republicans and make a choice? Jeez.) So, Trump gets all the real dummies, regardless of their customary party affiliation, and thereby does better than Rubio would.
Trump, however, would alienate highbrow Republicans, who may not be all that smart, but at least have some education, compassion or refinement. (They don't need all of those qualities, just some.) It would be close because not all American voters are insane or stupid. Still, Trump, on balance, would accrue more votes from the non-Republican rabble than he would lose from the Republican intelligentsia. He would do better than Rubio.
Rubio does not have the best chance of winning, despite what his supporters are saying right now. Wanting something to be so doesn't make it any more likely. If you like young Marco, think long and hard about his realistic chance of winning the general election. Remember, not everyone is as susceptible to his boyish charm as you are, and most of us don't swoon when his name is mentioned.
It's time to put on your green eyeshade, get steely-eyed, and dispense with emotion.
I'm going to pay close attention to what polling experts like Nate Silver have to say because I believe in statistics. Silver uses Monte Carlo simulation to derive probability models for elections. People who never took a statistics course at the college level don’t give enough credence to statistics because, well, they aren’t well informed enough to understand that the calculated statistical probability of less than one in a trillion that the 2004 vote count in Ohio was fair and honest means that it was fixed. If you've ever used mathematical techniques such as Monte Carlo simulation in your work, you know how probability really works and you believe in their predictive power. It also means that you probably don't play fantasy football or feed slot machines because those are sucker bets and only suckers play them. Putting your money on "Rubio to win" is still a long shot and there are other Republicans with better odds.
And, Trump is going to win the Republican nomination. Really. So, do you believe me yet?