The Republican establishment badly needs to thin the candidate herd. Like, now.

washingtonpost.com ^ | 2/4/16 | Chris Cillizza

[cotton1706]

Since the Iowa caucuses ended Monday night, three Republican candidates have ended their presidential campaigns. The problem for establishment GOPers? None of that trio is named Jeb Bush, John Kasich or Chris Christie.

The thinning of the Republican field has occurred entirely outside of the "establishment" lane -- with Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Rand Paul all calling it quits. That's a very bad thing for an establishment badly in need of finding a unity candidate soon if they want to have any hope of unseating the two favorites -- Donald Trump and Ted Cruz -- as the race moves into March (and probably later).

[JoeFromSidney]

How about letting the Republican voters thin the herd? The last thing we need is the Republican Establishment deciding who our candidate is. That's almost as bad as letting the liberal media select our candidate.

[DoughtyOne]

[Leo Carpathian]

Rubio and Cruz should go first - not Natural Born Citizens.
Stay in Senate.

[HHFi]

The problem with the theory that thinning the herd will allow one candidate to consolidate the establishment vote is that when you add up the support of all the “outsider” or at least non-establishment-approved candidates - Trump, Cruz, Carson, Huckabee, Santorum, Fiorina, Paul, etc. — it’s about 60% of the vote. As establishment candidates drop out and winnow the field, so will outsider candidates, so that it won’t be possible to win a primary with 40% of the vote. The GOP establishment can’t consolidate its support and win because they’ve so badly squandered the voters’ trust that all their support put together can’t even pull over 50% in a GOP primary.