Posted on 06/01/2016 1:39:22 PM PDT by jazusamo
A group of prominent conservative activists, including the writer and radio host Erick Erickson, aren’t satisfied with Bill Kristol’s suggestion of David French as a third party candidate and are still looking for another alternative to Donald Trump.
The activists are working separately from Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard who favors French, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.
“We’re not going to be jumping on board with what Kristol is doing,” said a person involved in the discussions. “We learned about this from the media along with everyone else.”
Organizers of the self-described Conservative Against Trump group said Kristol’s decision to champion French, a conservative writer, constitutional lawyer and decorated Iraq war veteran, took them by surprise, especially because French has a relatively low public profile.
“This is like flipping open the phone book and picking someone on page 325,” the source said.
The group includes Erickson, South Dakota businessman Bob Fischer, Bill Wichterman, a former advisor to President George W. Bush and former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), conservative columnist Quin Hillyer, and conservative strategist Liz Mair.
The group was expected to issue a statement Wednesday or Thursday.
Erickson did not respond to a request to comment for this story. On his website, The Resurgent, he wrote Wednesday that he would vote for French but gave him low odds of even getting on the ballot in many states.
“But let’s be realistic about this. David French has, charitably, 0.1 percent name ID. He will have to raise at least $250 million, dedicating almost all of that to ballot access fights and potential legal challenges to extend deadlines,” Erickson wrote.
“I’d vote for David French,” he added. “Ultimately, however, I suspect the ballot access hurdle will be too much. I suspect it really be an insurmountable improbability.”
Conservative activist leaders held a conference call Wednesday to plan their next steps, on which Erickson did not participate although he was part of a conversation Tuesday evening.
Another conservative leader familiar with the recent discussions said, “We’re still continuing our recruitment effort.”
Only a few in the group have even met French, whom Kristol floated as a possible pick on Tuesday. It met with a decidedly mixed reaction.
“I just wanted to go pound my head against the wall,” said Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, a conservative group with about 100,000 members. “I’m sorry, David’s a great guy but he’s not impressive as a presidential candidate. Where’s the team? I haven’t seen anything about a team.
“Bill Kristol jumped the shark on this one,” he added.
French or any other candidate entering the race at this late date would face significant hurdles to getting on the ballot.
Phillips estimates French would need two million signatures to get on the ballot in states where deadlines haven’t yet passed and at least $500 million “to even have a prayer of moving the needle” in the race.
He argued that conservative activists would be smarter to pressure the Republican Party to give the nomination to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R), who finished in second place behind Trump, at the convention in Cleveland.
Hillyer, a member of the Conservatives Against Trump movement, however, said it’s “too early” to make a definitive judgment on French.
“I am wholeheartedly supportive of David French as a candidate. I do not know him other than by reputation. He is bronze star winner and a brilliant constitutional lawyer,” he said in an interview. “Obviously, he does not have a big national name. He will have to make a good first impression and we’ll see if he does.”
French teased his potential candidacy on Twitter Wednesday.
“All the normal political rules apply. The conventional wisdom has been right. An underdog can't win. Right?” he wrote.
Other conservatives are skeptical.
Conservative strategist Brian Darling, a former advisor to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.),
speculated that Kristol may be motivated to pull Republican votes away from Trump because he would prefer that likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton becomes president instead.
“I worry that Kristol’s strategy is to elect Hillary,” he said. “Hillary’s foreign policy is much closer to his foreign policy than Donald Trump’s foreign policy.”
Kristol, a leading neoconservative, did not respond to a request for comment left at his office.
How could someone named “French” run for president of the US and hope to get anywhere?
Won’t happen.
Bill Kristol and rest of #NeverTrumpers don’t have deep pockets.
Neither does David French. And they lack the infrastructure of an established party.
This is a joke.
This guy French they are pushing is weird. Insisted his wife not email or “Facebook” any men, no matter who, while he was overseas. His wife felt the need to write a sobby piece for the Washington Post about how a few people insulted her on twitter when they adopted an Ethiopian.
The husband wrote a piece in neocon Commentary magazine about the Trayvon Martin case, using the opportunity to criticize conservatives.
Oh, and he promised several times to support Trump if he was nominated.
Then suddenly he became a “Never Trumper” trying to put Hillary Clinton into the presidency.
I think David French is an excellent writer and a fine person, but this is just loony toons stuff.
David French is a crappy Harvard lawyer. His so called duty in Iraq was being a JAG....oh goody another Lindsey Graham.... I want him to tell soldiers who bled there just what a great war hero he is.
WHEN did we start calling lawyers who are there to charge soldiers for violations of ROE war heroes????
I guess these “conservatives” are on a quest to find someone more obscure than Kristol’s choice. Maybe they can get the night manager at Taco Bell to throw his paper hat in the ring.
This is actually hilarious.
It’s fun watching a gaggle of arrogant narcissists beclowning themselves.
Yea, that's the ticket. Give it to a guy that basically got 1/3 of the delegates as the winner. That way everyone will fall in line, LOL. These people have real mental disorders.
Liz Pfair? She's a conservative? Since when? Same thing for Erick Erickson. This simpleton was calling for a tax increase on his Atlanta radio show a couple of years ago.
Once again we are seeing the tragedy of someone who doesn't realize how irrelevant they are.
Any of these losers should have announced their candidacy back before the primaries started. Today is TOO LATE.
Get this, Erickson and Kristol—the voters have already voted and they chose Trump. We even got a couple of states that will vote soon, and I’ll take any bets on your guy versus Trump winning.
Get over it or go away.
The funny thing is that Neoconservatives dominated the party apparatus from George Bush Senior up until this very election.
The sad thing is that I was talking to a co-worker of mine who seems to display the exact schizophrenia that has plagued the Republican party for decades. One day he says “We don’t need to be nation-building or policing the world” then the next day he’s all pissed-off at a terrorist bombing somewhere and says “We need to go over there and just conquer ISIS.”
He never seems to realize that his latter suggestion is completely antithetical to his former statement and would simply create a power vacuum to be filled with someone else. The only alternative IS an attempt at nation building OR....stay the hell out.
Here was David French last February, after NR published their famous anti-Trump issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khqJRmTOmNE&t=13m33s
Thanks...French has a damned short memory doesn’t he.
What a bunch of idiots. I hope this election season is the last we see of and hear from Bill Kristol.
Had a bad day, and needed this laugh. thank you so much.
“and conservative strategist Liz Mair.”
Nothing conservative about that corporate GOPe skank.
We get more mileage around here out of The Princess Bride than any other movie. Little did I suspect it was a stealth political tale when I first saw it. André the Giant rules.
French came across as pretty reasonable.
How about JINO and CINO?
As soon as he was anointed Majority Leader.
Why worry. Kristol’s candidate might get, what, .05% of the vote? Maybe.
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