This has to be a new watershed at least in modern American political history. The former GOP nominee of 2012 is viciously attacking the 2016 GOP primary leader.
He doesn't endorse any candidate but not-Trump. He says vote for Rubio in Florida, Kasich, in Ohio, and Cruz wherever he can win.
So that's the true candidate now of the Establishment: brokered convention. Of course, this strategy will also kill any chance of Rubio to win the nomination-at most it would stop Trump from getting a nomination he is already 30 percent towards gaining.
Romney also predicts Trump won't release his tax returns. This from Mr. 47 Percent who still hasn't released his own tax returns-he released summaries, that's all.
So this is how the GOP ends, this is their savior?! A clueless plutocrat like Romney who begged for Trump's endorsement in 2012?
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/gushing-romney-accepts-trump-endorsement
Romney criticized Trump for calling for torture, forgetting that George W. Bush and Cheney brought torture back. Waterboarding is Dick Cheney's policy.
There is little ground to attack Trump for agreeing with Dick Cheney.
Romney tried to pull of this impressive moment of double thinking, a la Orwell.
1. Criticizing Trump for criticizing W.
2. Criticizing Trump for agreeing with W's torture policies.
It's like Matt Ygleisas's observation yesterday. Trump is beatable, but not by a GOPer. Only Hillary Clinton can do that.
"There are three main problems with Donald Trump as a candidate for national office, none of which can be effectively exploited by the Republican Party but all of which can be exploited by Clinton. "
P.S. Andrea Mitchell confirms that Romney is putting himself out there to the Establishment as the Convention choice instead of Trump.
This from the man who was too intimidated by Jeb Bush to get in the race.
UPDATE: However, for what it's worth, I notice that Trump's' chances of winning the GOP primary just dropped 6 percent in the betting odds-from about 76 percent to about 70 percent.
https://electionbettingodds.com/week.html
Interestingly, Rubio's numbers didn't go up at all. But Ted Cruz's have spiked 4 percent and Kasich's are up about 2.5 percent. This suggests for now at least the market thinks Romney's speech could hurt Trump but Romney's strategy of just voting for the candidate most likely to beat Trump in state by state might actually help Cruz and Kasich.
And this is true as I suggested up top. This anyone but Trump strategy, if voters do it, actually hurts Rubio.
He doesn't endorse any candidate but not-Trump. He says vote for Rubio in Florida, Kasich, in Ohio, and Cruz wherever he can win.
So that's the true candidate now of the Establishment: brokered convention. Of course, this strategy will also kill any chance of Rubio to win the nomination-at most it would stop Trump from getting a nomination he is already 30 percent towards gaining.
Romney also predicts Trump won't release his tax returns. This from Mr. 47 Percent who still hasn't released his own tax returns-he released summaries, that's all.
So this is how the GOP ends, this is their savior?! A clueless plutocrat like Romney who begged for Trump's endorsement in 2012?
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/gushing-romney-accepts-trump-endorsement
Romney criticized Trump for calling for torture, forgetting that George W. Bush and Cheney brought torture back. Waterboarding is Dick Cheney's policy.
There is little ground to attack Trump for agreeing with Dick Cheney.
Romney tried to pull of this impressive moment of double thinking, a la Orwell.
1. Criticizing Trump for criticizing W.
2. Criticizing Trump for agreeing with W's torture policies.
It's like Matt Ygleisas's observation yesterday. Trump is beatable, but not by a GOPer. Only Hillary Clinton can do that.
"There are three main problems with Donald Trump as a candidate for national office, none of which can be effectively exploited by the Republican Party but all of which can be exploited by Clinton. "
"The problems are:
"There is simply no reason to believe that this is what the American people are looking for."
"The problem Republicans have is that is that these flaws are not flaws a Republican Party politician can effectively articulate to an audience of Republican Party primary voters."
"This has left them resorting to a smorgasbord of hypocritical arguments and opportunistic cheap shots that don't have a clear takeaway, occasionally punctuated with the observation that Trump does not rigidly adhere to the GOP donor class's policy preference."
"To the extent that this strategy could possibly accomplish anything, it's actually worked quite well — the GOP donor class has not given Trump money, they have given a lot of money to Trump's rivals, and they've induced the lion's share of donor-dependent Republican politicians to endorse Marco Rubio. The problem is that this strategy can't accomplish the thing that would cause Trump to lose: convince voters not to vote for him."
"Clinton will not be so constrained. She can, and presumably will, press all three lines of attack effectively."
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11144320/super-tuesday-results-clinton-can-stop-trump
Mitt Romney as the man to save the GOP is as sad as George W. Bush in SC coming forward as the man to save Jeb. It sure didn't save Jeb and it's hard to see Mitt saving the GOP.
- Trump is a racist.
- Trump's business record is unimpressive and ethically dodgy.
- Trump's policy ideas are terrible.
"There is simply no reason to believe that this is what the American people are looking for."
"The problem Republicans have is that is that these flaws are not flaws a Republican Party politician can effectively articulate to an audience of Republican Party primary voters."
- Republican Party primary voters think that white people being shamed for racism is a bigger problem than white people doing racist stuff.
- Republican Party elites are ideologically committed to the defense of inherited wealth and opposed to the regulation of business in the public interest.
- Republican Party elites essentially share Trump's least popular and most obviously ridiculous policy idea — an enormous tax cut for the rich — so they can't criticize it.
"This has left them resorting to a smorgasbord of hypocritical arguments and opportunistic cheap shots that don't have a clear takeaway, occasionally punctuated with the observation that Trump does not rigidly adhere to the GOP donor class's policy preference."
"To the extent that this strategy could possibly accomplish anything, it's actually worked quite well — the GOP donor class has not given Trump money, they have given a lot of money to Trump's rivals, and they've induced the lion's share of donor-dependent Republican politicians to endorse Marco Rubio. The problem is that this strategy can't accomplish the thing that would cause Trump to lose: convince voters not to vote for him."
"Clinton will not be so constrained. She can, and presumably will, press all three lines of attack effectively."
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11144320/super-tuesday-results-clinton-can-stop-trump
Mitt Romney as the man to save the GOP is as sad as George W. Bush in SC coming forward as the man to save Jeb. It sure didn't save Jeb and it's hard to see Mitt saving the GOP.
P.S. Andrea Mitchell confirms that Romney is putting himself out there to the Establishment as the Convention choice instead of Trump.
This from the man who was too intimidated by Jeb Bush to get in the race.
UPDATE: However, for what it's worth, I notice that Trump's' chances of winning the GOP primary just dropped 6 percent in the betting odds-from about 76 percent to about 70 percent.
https://electionbettingodds.com/week.html
Interestingly, Rubio's numbers didn't go up at all. But Ted Cruz's have spiked 4 percent and Kasich's are up about 2.5 percent. This suggests for now at least the market thinks Romney's speech could hurt Trump but Romney's strategy of just voting for the candidate most likely to beat Trump in state by state might actually help Cruz and Kasich.
And this is true as I suggested up top. This anyone but Trump strategy, if voters do it, actually hurts Rubio.
Looks like Romney's speech may have affected the betting odds a bit?:
ReplyDeletehttps://electionbettingodds.com/
Hannity, Coulter and Ingraham need to kick it into high gear: let the world know what a festering, corn studded, blood spackled, pus filled, maggot infested reeking pile of diarrhetic poo Romney is!! Lol!
DeleteIt clearly has. Trump is down another 5 since I wrote this piece. So he's down 10.
DeleteRubio is up about 4 now and Cruz and Kasich have risen.
What about Romney's chances? Clearly that's his game- be the new choice at the convention
... and then they need to get nasty! Bring up that his god lives on planet Kolob. Make fun of he and his family's magic underwear. Accuse him of child molestation and Satan worship. This fundy whack-job had the right idea...
DeleteWell he is a Mormon which will make that plausible for most conservatives.
DeleteIt's strange in a way for Rubio's numbers to go up as Romney's plan is not to help Rubio but sabotage Trump from getting to 1027. He's already 1/3 there.
ReplyDeleteHere we go (from Ann's twitter):
ReplyDeleteWillard Mitt Romney. Scared of Jeb!. Serial presidential candidate. Bitter loser. History's speed bump.
Romney cites Reagan & Goldwater to attack Trump. Romney BRAGGED about his dad not supporting Goldwater
Romney's just mad because his father was a Mexican.
Hannity, not so much, but at least he woke up today.
Trump should call Romney an anchor baby from Mexico and say Romney's just scared because he knows he and his "wetback" family are getting their "beaner" asses deported should a "real American" take office. Lol!
Delete... and he should bring up this movie:
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_%281971_film%29
With this great movie poster.
Mike, check this out:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.redstate.com/streiff/2016/03/03/koch-brothers-throw-towel-opposing-trump/
Also, it appears that Carson isn't totally out: he'll still be scamming people for some time to come, even though he's not doing the debate.
One good thing about the odds table is that even though Trump has fallen perhaps 15% since his high early on Tuesday (where he breached 80% for a bit), is that Hillary's Tuesday climb up past 60% has not diminished:
ReplyDeletehttps://electionbettingodds.com/
Mike, this is good:
ReplyDelete"Donald Trump’s only major accomplishment in 2016 is to bring out the absolute worst in everyone on all sides."
Oh god, this is funny. Trump may have toxic David Duke and Louis Farrakhan to deal with, but Cruz has this (which should be equally toxic with his Erickson-approved-Bible-inerrancy-believing True evangelical Christians).
ReplyDeleteTrump is DEFINITELY not beneath bringing that up. I really hope he does! Maybe I'll construct a meme, with Caitlyn on one side and this picture on the other and tweet it to Ann Coulter. What could the text read:
"How come we never see Ted and Caitlyn in the same room?"
"Separated at birth?"
Oh, man, this could be fun.