The really big mistake the GOPe is making by mustering all of its forces, including a platoon of nothing-burger candidates and a gaggle of phoney-conservative PACs, is that nuking TRUMP is a scorched earth policy. They do not appear to understand that any establishment candidate they might squeak through the primaries will lose in a landslide because they terminally pissed of 40% of their base, but also that they will lose the down-ticket across the board, including Congress, the Governors, and the State houses, because the base will stay home.
Yes, I know the money-people behind the GOPe won’t care because they’ve simply bought ALL the politicians on both sides of the aisle anyway, so THEY can’t lose no matter what happens, but you’d think that GOPe party apparatus and their other candidates WOULD care about losing. Perhaps the GOPe REALLY is the stupid party, after all.
I don’t think that such losses matter to them at all.
They will still be in government doing exactly what they do now, pretending to oppose what they are for.
The only difference is that it’s easier to accomplish this technique in the minority.
The GOPe don’t care if their candidate loses. They would prefer a loss to a win by a Trump or Cruz. If either of those guys wins he’ll gut the RINOs out of their cushy jobs running the RNC. As for Boehner and McConnell, they lose their status as leaders of the party. If a Democrat is elected they remain the “leaders of the opposition”, but can still blame the Democrat president for not doing anything. And they can use the threat of a Democrat President and Congress to blackmail conservatives into voting for them and their ilk. So they are actually better off with a Democrat president.
Ah, yep, that's what they'll get, and what's left of 'em won't be useful to the Rats anymore, their crony perks will dry up.