Why this GOP Primary Really May Be Different This Time

Normally this is seen as famous last words. The idea that it's different thins itme is usually wrong. Though I think that's more the case in markets and economies than politics.

I've been arguing this point for awhile.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/10/my-grand-unified-theory-of-gop-primary.html?showComment=1446175826956#c1535677431028603681

I'm happy to see that Nate Silver is finally now considering this possibility that it's different this time.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/maybe-republicans-really-are-in-disarray/

I wonder when Jonathan Bernstein finally considers it. I had a Twitter exchange with hi where he is basically just sticking to the Party Decides meme regardless of how different this cycle has been.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-07/party-elites-not-voters-will-choose-2016-nominees

For a refreshing view, we have to look to Norm Ornstein who as way back as August admitted that maybe it's different this time.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/maybe-this-time-really-is-different/401900/

Here I think Orstein breaks it down in a very succient way which shows that maybe the party will-eventually-get it's nominee-which at this point is probably Rubio not Jeb.

But the word eventually is the key. It would be wonderful for Rubio for Jeb to drop out but he'd still face a huge uphill battle.

"But here is the most important and enduring fact of the GOP race so far. In every recent national poll of Republicans, including those with likely voters, with or without leaners, the breakdown is that the five main outsider candidates (Trump, Carson, Cruz, Fiorina, Huckabee) combine to generate between 63 and 70 percent support. The three main establishment candidates, Bush, Rubio, and Kasich, combine to between 12 and 19 percent."

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/2016-outlook/412813/

So maybe eventually when Jeb and Kasich give it up Rubio has 19% and the outsiders sill have at least 63%. He is going to have to convert an awful lot of primary voters.

Maybe it can be done but why simply presume it will?

"Of course, there is a chance that as one or more of the outsider candidates falters, their supporters will gravitate to Rubio or one of the other establishment figures. Or that the outsiders will fragment in support, allowing Rubio, the establishment favorite, to do what Mitt Romney did in 2012. But it is a bit more likely that the bulk of those voters will opt instead for another outsider."
Ok, historical precedent would suggest it will. But show me the historical precident that looks like this?

This makes us think of the Dems, erc. It used to be the Dems who would insist on falling in love the the Republicans who fell in line. Things sure have changed. The Dems over the years had some disastrous primaries. 1968, and Ted Kennedy really hurt President Carter in his fruitless primary challenge.

There was the Dixiecrat revolt of 1948. That year the Dems were split three ways with Henry Wallace on the Left and Strom Thurmond on the Right.

Somehow Truman weathered it.

But to tell you the truth, if this year's GOP primary reminds me of any historical precedent it's the 1924 Dems whose primary was every bit the joke that this GOP primary is.

You had the Southern Dixiecrats who were besotted by Klansmen. You had the Yankee liberals, the ethnic immigrant machines and the farmbelt who was econoimcally populist but also bigoted against  Catholics, etc.

"The 1924 Democratic National Convention, also called the Klanbake,[1] held at the Madison Square Garden in New York City from June 24 to July 9, 1924, took a record 103 ballots to nominate a presidential candidate. It was the longest continuously running convention in United States political history. It was the first major party national convention that saw the name of a woman, Lena Springs, placed in nomination for the office of Vice President. It was also known for the strong influence of the Ku Klux Klan. John W. Davis, initially an outsider, eventually won the presidential nomination as a compromise candidate following a virtual war of attrition between front-runners William Gibbs McAdoo and Al Smith."

"Davis and his vice presidential running-mate, Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska, went on to be defeated by the Republican ticket of President Calvin Coolidge and Charles G. Dawes in the 1924 presidential election."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_Democratic_National_Convention

Everything from Klansmen to suffrageists, to Tom Brown's religious fundmanetalists and points in between.

Interesting to see if this year's GOP primary lasts as long as the 1924 Dems.