They just don’t understand that losing the OTHER way is just a huge a possibility as what they fear will happen if Trump is the nominee:
As Trump cements his front-runner status, senior party figures are moving away from the idea of defeating him outright. At this point, they hope to deny him enough delegates to clinch the nomination, which would give them the chance to choose a compromise candidate at their July convention in Cleveland.
The last time that happened at a Republican convention was in 1948 when Thomas Dewey was nominated. Cruz said that scenario was unacceptable this year. “If the Washington dealmakers try to steal the nomination from the people, I think it would be a disaster. It would cause a revolt,” the senator from Texas told reporters in Maine.
The GOPe is COUNTING on the fact that their time old tactic will be in force again: “where else will they go” (think: derisive tone)? The problem is, the answer has already smacked them in the butt the last few cycles – people simply stayed home. The GOPe made them not to care. Bound and determined, they be, to do it again, it seems. While the Electoral College results are wide, the district levels are mere percentage differences at times. If the Establishment #NeverTrump movement works, they may well find out that the #GOPsucks will work better with a whole lot more folks.
It comes down to this – the GOP seems very willing to tick off and sacrifice voters that they will have (either Trump or Cruz followers) to make the play for an electorate that they don’t know if they can get in the General Election.
Which tells you all you need to know about how the GOPe thinks about you.
UPDATE: Heh! Ted Cruz is spot on with this:
“Any time you hear someone talking about a brokered convention it is the Washington establishment in a fevered frenzy. They’re really frustrated because all of their chosen candidates, all of their golden children, the voters keep rejecting. And so they seized on this master plan. We go to a brokered convention and the DC power brokers will drop someone in who is exactly to the liking of the Washington establishment. If that happens we will have a manifest revolt on our hands…. If you want to beat Donald Trump here’s how you do it: You beat Donald Trump with the voters.”
But they haven’t learned that lesson yet – and are tearing out their hair absolutely frustrated WHY no one is listening to them. They spend all this time pontificating all KINDS of reasons when the actual answer is very simple; we aren’t listening to you because:
- You aren’t listening to us so your priorities are exactly opposite of what the voters want
- You talk the right words but then your actions, legislation, and votes stab us in the back – you refuse to walk the talk.
And from a commenter at Glenn Reynolds’ place has the perfect reposte for the GOPe and Mitt Romney:
To say Romney overplayed his hand is assuming he had one to begin with.
Update 2: Ah! I forgot I had bookmarked this from Carly Fiorina about the GOPe:
The Republican establishment thought it too knew just what to do after the 2012 election. First, they decided, we needed comprehensive immigration reform. Then, we needed to talk less about “the social issues”. And there were too many candidates in the 2012 primaries, and too many debates. So, let’s limit the number of debates. In fact, let’s condense the whole primary calendar so our presumptive nominee can roll up delegates faster. Let’s make sure that the primary voters know who the establishment thinks should be the nominee. Let’s have all the pundits and the money make the case right from the start about who’s up at bat next.
Republican voters said: no, we need to secure the border. No, citizenship in this country must mean something. No, our religious liberty is at stake. No, we don’t want who you want, we want to choose for ourselves and the more choices we have, the better we like it. Many pundits and not a few current and former politicians, now decry the wisdom of these same voters. They don’t like how they happen to be voting right now. But, these voters look at what the Republican Party has produced and think they can do better deciding for themselves.
Fiorina said as the establishment is expressing “horror” over the choice of the voters, “these same voters are asking, ‘What have you done for me?’”
Do not misunderstand me. I am no Donald Trump fan. I did not vote for him in the Virginia primary. Nevertheless, I understand and respect the people who did vote for him. I know many of them. They are not racists, or crazies, or stupid. While many people call the Donald a fraud, a con-man, there are a lot of voters out there who think they have been conned election after election. They know what it is to be promised something and delivered nothing.
Tip O’Neill famously remarked that all politics are local. Actually, I believe politics is personal. People vote based on their own lives, their own experiences, their own beliefs and hopes and dreams. If we want to defeat Donald Trump, we cannot turn to the establishment once again and ask them to guide the citizenry to the right answer. If we want defeat Donald Trump, we must defeat him at the ballot box, by offering citizens conservative solutions to the problems in their lives.
