Posted on 11/15/2016 4:56:14 AM PST by iontheball
The conventional wisdom was that almost any of the other 16 Republican presidential candidates could have run better than Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton's team certainly believed it.
Now that Trump is president-elect, not only was his weakness clearly exaggerated. With the benefit of hindsight, Trump may have been the only Republican contender who could have broken Clinton's blue wall and pulled off the upset.
"I wouldn't have believed it," said a D.C. anti-Trump conservative. "Now it sure seems like it."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Well, the doubting Thomases received a resounding answer to that question on November 8. If the many Trump doubters had their way we would all be licking our wounds now having bet and lost yet again on the wrong horse. This time we would have lost America in the process. There was no other choice but Trump to win this most critical election. That is why it was necessary for Trump and his supporters to fight like hell what seemed to be the rest of the universe to win this one. It most certainly is one for the history books, a win against all odds with the survival of this great country in the balance. It was clearly worth all the criticism and effort and it feels terrific to be winning again.
YEP !!!
Yes
Uh...YEAH!
YES!!!
Cruz had zero chance of winning in the upper midwest in a general election.
There's going to be so much winning that you're going to get tired of winning, and you're going to say, "Please, stop winning, it's too much winning," and Trump's going to say, "No, we're not gonna stop winning!"
Jeb would of been massacred by Hillary. Oddly the Clinton camp wanted Trump because they thought he was a clown.
McCain and Romney are both “authentic Republicans”.
Yes.
Oh, I think Cruz in all three debates would have been interesting to watch and strictly on debates....he would have done as well as Trump.
But you needed someone who just kept taking the curves that she threw and tossed them right back. None of them...especially Jeb...would have handled this well. Toss in the 100-percent slanted press? Yeah...they would have all failed.
But Trump knew the press slant and used against them. He actually made CNN look like fools.
Only one tough enough to stand up to the onslaught.
Yes.
No one else would or could have fought and destroyed the Mediacracy like he did.
Only in your unConstitutional dreams. He will NEVER be eligible for president.
People might think so but in reality probably not. Clinton was such a weak candidate that most of the Republicans who ran would have beaten her. On the other hand some of the Republicans who ran were weaker than she was so it all worked out in the end.
"Hillary was such a flawed candidate that ANY Republican who won the nomination was destined to win the presidency, and most would have won by a much larger margin than Trump. Cruz and Rubio would have gotten a much larger share, if not an outright majority, of the Hispanic vote, Jeb or Kasich would have peeled off many more moderate voters from Hillary etc."
The counter argument I gave was:
"Trump was the ONLY candidate who could beat Hillary. None of the traditional candidates would have gone on the attack the way Trump did. They all would have treated Hillary with kid gloves for fear of being labeled sexist. Hillary would have gone into the election with all her ethics and criminal issues swept under the rug and with her huge money and liberal media advantage she would have crushed any other Republican. Not to mention Trump was the only candidate that made a serious shot at the rust belt working class."
Certainly two polar opposite views of the election, it is probably a discussion that political science classes will be having for years to come...
Absolutely. If Trump hadn't been way outside the norm, Jeb would've been the pre-determined nominee before voters even knew there was an election going on. Jeb (or any of the other wannabees) would not have been the force of nature needed to defeat hillary.
The question is would Biden or Sanders have won. There is some logic that Biden would've done much better in NE PA, and carried PA. One thing's forsure. hillary is so bad as a campaigner and has such bad judgement that she can't win even when it's handed to her!
The generic Republican to be named later is a proven world beater. Too bad once the media/Democrats go to work on him, he folds like a cheap suit.
And if it did appear to Democrats that cankles was going down, they would have exercised the Torricelli Option with Biden and probably won.
Cruz might have not been as successful in PA, OH, Michigan, and Wisconsin. He did not fair well at all in the primaries in any of them.
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