It’s looking more and more likely that the election will be a showdown between political neophytes Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson, and this has the establishment extremely worried. How worried?
Less than three months before the kick-off Iowa caucuses, there is growing anxiety bordering on panic among Republican elites about the dominance and durability of Donald Trump and Ben Carson and widespread bewilderment over how to defeat them.
Party leaders and donors fear nominating either man would have negative ramifications for the GOP ticket up and down the ballot, virtually ensuring a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency and increasing the odds that the Senate falls into Democratic hands.
According to other Republicans, some in the party establishment are so desperate to change the dynamic that they are talking anew about drafting Romney — despite his insistence that he will not run again. Friends have mapped out a strategy for a late entry to pick up delegates and vie for the nomination in a convention fight, according to the Republicans, who were briefed on the talks, though Romney has shown no indication of reviving his interest.
This is the rumor that won’t die. If anything, it speaks to two things:first, the establishment’s total dissatisfaction with their preferred candidates- Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, two guys who can’t seem to gain any ground on the frontrunners, despite significant financial resources and an air of inevitability that surrounded them. Are these candidates so bad that the establishment believes Romney could join the election now and do better? If so, that’s alarming.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, they’re disregarding the will of the base. For years, conservative voters have demanded a candidate who can speak for their values and shares their concerns. Many were nonplussed by Romney’s last candidacy, so much so that they latched on to any candidate who did anything remotely conservative. It is unclear how nominating Romney a second time, in the face of such a popular outsider movement, would be taken as anything more than antagonistic. If people stayed home for Romney last time, imagine how they’ll behave when his candidacy is foisted upon them by force.
It’s this sort of logic that’s lost the GOP so many national elections.
AAN Staff
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