It's been clear to me for years that the GOPe, despite some disagreements wit the Democrats, regard a conservative takeover of the Executive Branch as a catastrophe to be prevented at all costs.
This is why I support a third party - not as a vehicle for an egomaniac nor as a single-issue vehicle, but as a genuine party that contests all 435 House seats and all open Senate seats, as well as the Presidency.
The problem we have is not that a Jeb Bush or Chris Christie nomination will split the party openly - either of them would lose quietly as conservatives stayed home.
The problem is that a Cruz or a Palin nomination would split the party openly. I think that either Christie or Bush would run as Hillary's VP to "save the nation" from - us.
And, although we could beat that ticket with a two-year, positive runup to 2016, a last-minute "emergency" coalition with the enemedia fanning the flames of panic about the "extreme right-wing takeover crisis" might not give us enough time to change enough minds to win.
Bottom line: If they win the nomination, they expect our support. If we win the nomination, they have no intention of supporting us.
Think Jim Jeffords or Arlen Specter on a national scale.
The split has already happened, and it's permanent. The Bush-Clinton crime family coalition exists to prevent another Reagan. Let's not fool around any more.
This must become common knowledge.
I'm old enough to remember the 1980 Republican National Convention in Detroit. Reagan had the votes, and the blue-blood Nelson Rockefeller wing couldn't stand it. They tried to push Gerald Ford as the Vice President, but in actuality they wanted to anoint him as the "co-president", with Henry Kissinger as Secretary of State and Alan Greenspan as Treasury Secretary - if you can believe it.
Reagan, thank God, said no way, no how.
Then, less than 24 hours to go before the announcement, they went searching for George HW Bush. They found him in a bar in the Joe Louis Arena, drowning his sorrows over his primary loss. He was the great white hope for the country club patrician Republicans, who would balance out the crazy cowboy Ronald Reagan. The rest is history, except that the liberal GOP hasn't given up on destroying conservatives.
The Democrats have turned hardcore radical left, and the GOPe, your current Republican Party, with no core principals to anchor them, have gotten swept away in the undertow.
If that ticket would work then there is no saving the Republic.