Stephen F. Hayes:
Here’s the new line from Donald Trump’s cheerleaders in the conservative media: A refusal to support Trump is a de facto endorsement of Hillary Clinton. It’s an argument they’re making out of necessity, not conviction, trying to use peer pressure to achieve the unanimity their previous exhortations failed to produce.
First, they asked us to believe Trump was a conservative. But that argument couldn’t survive a cursory look at his background, and it falls apart further with nearly every policy pronouncement Trump makes. Then they said he was antiestablishment. But Trump financed the establishment of both parties for years and is now telling anyone who will listen that he intends to go establishment once he gets the Republican nomination. Then they asked us to look past his boorishness and promised he’d tone it down as the process went on. But Trump continued his subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) race-baiting and lately has encouraged violence against those who protest at his rallies. And when his supporters answered his call, he defended their actions and once again raised the possibility that he’d pay the legal fees of offenders. They promised he’d surround himself with the very best people. But Trump’s campaign manager manhandled a female reporter, and when Trump was asked last week to make good on his promise to name his foreign policy advisers, he said: “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things. . . . My primary consultant is myself, and I have a good instinct for this stuff.”
Trump is manifestly unqualified for the office he seeks. And despite the best efforts of Trump boosters to persuade people otherwise, many Republican primary voters remain unconvinced.
In the five contests held on March 15, the share of GOP primary voters who told pollsters flatly they would not support Trump if he becomes the nominee ranged from roughly a quarter to a third. When GOP voters were asked if they’d be “satisfied” with a Clinton vs. Trump matchup or if they’d look at supporting a third-party candidate, the numbers were staggering. In Missouri and Illinois, 43 percent of GOP primary voters said they’d “seriously consider voting for a third-party candidate.” In Ohio, 42 percent said they were potential third-party voters. In North Carolina it was 39 percent, and in Florida, Trump’s best state that day, 3 in 10 Republican primary voters said they’d seriously consider a third party.
As those numbers indicate, a large swath of the Republican primary electorate is either so stubbornly opposed to Trump that they will not vote for him or dissatisfied enough that they will consider alternatives outside of their party. Those percentages may diminish, but given the intensity of views about Trump, they may not come down that far. So much for the myth, eagerly propagated by Trump enthusiasts, that the battle for the GOP nomination is a fight between Donald Trump and the protectors of the “establishment” in Washington.
Having failed to ease concerns about Trump’s character and convictions, his advocates are now making a different case: Trump will crush Hillary Clinton in a general election. It’s a revealing tack—answering objections about temperament and philosophy with claims about electability. It’s also highly dubious.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich says that with support from the “Republican establishment,” Trump could turn his effort “into a Reagan campaign like 1980 and have the party win a stunning victory.”
Stunning is one word for it. Ronald Reagan won 10 times the electoral votes of Jimmy Carter—489-49—in 1980, winning 55 percent of the votes cast for the two major-party candidates. Reagan won all but six states. The map of the 1980 election is almost entirely red, with a few spots of blue.
It was a landslide. Donald Trump matching that feat is, well, improbable.
Hillary Clinton has beaten Donald Trump in 43 of the past 49 head-to-head national polls. Sixty-seven percent of American voters have a negative view of Trump, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll out last week, and 56 percent say their view is “strongly” unfavorable. His favorable rating is at 30 percent, giving him a net favorable rating of negative 37. That’s not only the lowest rating of any candidate in the 2016 race, it’s among the lowest ratings seen in modern history.
Clinton has abysmal honest/trustworthy ratings; Trump’s are lower—in some cases nearly twice as bad as Clinton’s. In head-to-head comparisons with Trump, she’s seen as a candidate who is more empathetic and relatable and who has the right experience for the job. And, importantly, the more voters have seen of him, the worse he’s looked. His numbers in all of those categories have declined since September, in some cases markedly.
So, according to this ”logic” the Apostle Paul was STILL a Christian-hater years after he had his turnaround and became one of the early Christian group’s world leadership.
the Republican Party INCLUDES ”conservatives,” moderates and liberals, both fiscally and socially. No ”conservative” is winning the most of the delegates. and Cruz, who has a good number of delegates, also, according to those same polls, cannot beat Hillary! This makes sense, since so many would not vote for him based on his inability to work with others in the Senate. A ”deal maker,” he is NOT.
The only qualifications are:
1. a Natural Born citizen
2. 35 years of age, or older
3. a majority of Electoral College votes
The pollsters asked Republican voters.
Trump brings in non-voters, Independents and even Democrats who all vote for him, but they are excluded from all those polls.
Now, what about Cruz?
Is he ”an outsider,” like he claims?
One of his Super Pacs is Stand For Truth, Inc.
It was formed by Mitch McConnell’s lawyer, Eric Lycan.
He was the Kentucky Chairman, Lawyers for Romney in 2012.
He has represented the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (not Main street, but the open-borders, low wage national org.)
His Pac spends its every penny backing Ted Cruz…..when it isn’t spending to trash Trump.
Outsider?
Cruz hired the entire operational arm of the Jeb Bush campaign team: Paul Dickerson of Houston, TX, Boyden Gray of Washington, DC, Charles Foster of Houston, TX, Reginald J. Brown of Washington, DC, Paula and Jim Henry of Midland, TX, and Nancy and Randy Best of Dallas, TX. Along with Neil Bush.
Outsider?
Mitt hit it on the head – the GOPe are supporting Cruz now solely for the purpose of forcing a contested/brokered convention so they can put “their” man in place – whoever that may be.
Cruz is NOT an ”outsider,” he is a place-sitter.
Odd Republicans would use “Trump is not conservative” as their excuse for opposing Trump. Cruz is conservative and he stands up for conservative principles in the Senate, much to the chagrin of the establishment Republicans.
Anyone can beat Hillary. Once the candidate lays into her ineptitude, incompetence, failure, lying, corruption and crimes even the doting liberal media cannot protect her… IF the candidate lays into her. Most people can’t stand her anyway. Republicans had best prepare themselves to get behind Trump, if it comes to that, unless they prefer Hillary.
I’d sure like to see a link to a ‘quote’ of him saying that. I’ve heard a lot of what he has to say and i’ve not heard that.
And…. I’d like to see a link to that also. I’ve not seen or heard it one time in any speech I’ve seen him make. So just one example, please.
And this big deal has happened exactly once and all he did was state that he might pay the legal fees of a guy defending his rights.
That’s clearly NOT what that video shows.
Who and what determines qualifications for that office? Isn’t the qualification to be a natural born citizen and be elected? Would you say he iss more or less qualified than Obama or Hillary? Since he is a natural born citizen seems as the only other qualification is to be elected by the electoral college.
I do not believe that what pollsters say people ‘say to them’ is one of the qualifications for office. Flatly or not.
so 70% of Repubs and about 50% of Dimocrats would be voting for Trump, sounds like a slam dunk.
Yes but the problem with this is that the last 6 have been won by Trump. While it started heavily favoring Shrillary, the tide has turned significantly.
Yes that’s strange isn’t it? While everyone can tell you many things Hillary has lied about, they can’t tell you anything Trump has lied about. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
Tell us again about all that experience Hillary has that makes her qualified? Being first lady? She was CEO of what? Does her excellent ability to lie and break all the federal laws improve her qualifications? Note: when the column got to the ‘read more’ place, I elected not to. It’s rather obvious that Stephen F Hayes has an axe to grind and I saw nothing in his article that was worth spending any more time on. His hit piece was very lacking in any proof of anything he said, as is common in hit pieces. He should be writing for HuffPo. sounds like he might be qualified to do that. They don’t require any qualifications for Huffpo except that you not like conservatives.
@Redteam: #3
Thank you, Redteam. You saved me a lot of typing.
I’ll just add one thing:
“And despite the best efforts of Trump boosters to persuade people otherwise, many Republican primary voters remain unconvinced.”
So if we can’t convince everyone, we’re a failure?
Funny, funny, little man.
We wont vote for Trump because blah wa na, If he gets the nomination there are two paths, vote for Don or
get thrown in a pit of starving rabid ratswatch the dems take it.@kitt: #5
“We wont vote for Trump because blah wa na, If he gets the nomination there are two paths, vote for Don or get thrown in a pit of starving rabid rats watch the dems take it.”
Kitt, I… I… I wuv you soooo much…
@Petercat: U jus wuv my nasty sense of humor 😛