The Republican Party leadership must be having a lot of trouble sleeping these days.
With two political outsiders — Donald Trump and Ben Carson — leading the presidential pack by tapping into voters’ justified anger at the GOP, these are some desperate times, at least according to the Washington Post.
One of the surest signs of desperation is the simmering movement to draft Mitt Romney to make a late entry into the race. GOP strategists have gone so far as to lay out plans for a challenge at the GOP convention.
This is the same Romney who barely wanted to run for president in the last election.
In what should have been a knock-down, drag-out fight with possibly the worst president in history, Romney seemed to sleep through most of the campaign and could barely muster any energy even to defend himself against even the most scurrilous and obvious Democrat tactics.
One of the most defining moments of that campaign occurred during the debate with President Obama, in which Romney raised the issue of the president lying for weeks after the Benghazi attack about it being caused by a YouTube video (which he did), moderator Candy Crowley flagrantly lied in front of the nation by saying Obama had called the attack terrorism in a Rose Garden speech (which he did not), and then Romney stood there speechless and half-grinning like someone had just given him strawberry pancakes instead of blueberry.
Romney is exactly the sort of candidate the GOP establishment loves: a famous name attached to a nonentity with no moral compass and no convictions of his own except what focus group polls tell him to hold.
Romney fits right in the crowd of GOP failures like John McCain, Bob Dole, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie.
The establishment is afraid of Trump and Carson because they are appealing to voters on conservative issues that the GOP has ignored for years, and with that appeal comes a hesitancy by big-money donors who don’t want principles, just politicians who will answer their phone calls.
As the GOP bigwigs feel the money spigots being closed, they’ve begun to panic. The Post says they worry that a Trump or Carson nomination will destroy the GOP and give the election to Hillary Clinton.
I don’t buy that. I think the GOP establishment wants Clinton to win, because they’ve shown over the years that despite the Republican label, they’re really just Progressives in conservative suits, and the big money they are pursuing is likewise coming from Progressives who don’t consider politics a duty or even a passion, but a financial investment.
Trump or Carson would mess with that comfy arrangement.
The guy the GOP leadership should really be afraid of in my estimation is Ted Cruz. He’s not only got the conservative chops but he also has experience at making legislation move through Congress, a useful talent for a president. For the moment, he’s trailing both Trump and Carson, plus with being a senator he’s seen as a member of “the club,” so he’s far less threatening.
Any of the three top GOP contenders has a good chance to wallop Clinton in the general election, and if by some miracle Hillary lands in jail before then, Sanders doesn’t stand a chance even with George Soros’ backing.
