Posted on 08/05/2017 11:20:43 PM PDT by Pinkbell
Senators Tom Cotton and Ben Sasse have already been to Iowa this year, Gov. John Kasich is eyeing a return visit to New Hampshire, and Mike Pence’s schedule is so full of political events that Republicans joke that he is acting more like a second-term vice president hoping to clear the field than a No. 2 sworn in a little over six months ago.
President Trump’s first term is ostensibly just warming up, but luminaries in his own party have begun what amounts to a shadow campaign for 2020 — as if the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue weren’t involved.
The would-be candidates are cultivating some of the party’s most prominent donors, courting conservative interest groups and carefully enhancing their profiles. Mr. Trump has given no indication that he will decline to seek a second term.
But the sheer disarray surrounding this presidency, the intensifying investigation by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and the plain uncertainty about what Mr. Trump will do in the next week, let alone in the next election, have prompted Republican officeholders to take political steps that are unheard-of so soon into a new administration.
Asked about those Republicans who seem to be eyeing 2020, a White House spokeswoman, Lindsay Walter, fired a warning shot: “The president is as strong as he’s ever been in Iowa, and every potentially ambitious Republican knows that.”
But in interviews with more than 75 Republicans at every level of the party, elected officials, donors and strategists expressed widespread uncertainty about whether Mr. Trump would be on the ballot in 2020 and little doubt that others in the party are engaged in barely veiled contingency planning.
“They see weakness in this president,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. “Look, it’s not a nice business we’re in.”
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
This is a HUGE mistake for the Republican Party if this happens. The Trump voters are not going to vote for Sasse (who held a meet and greet in Iowa recently), Kasich (who intends to hold "policy forums" in Ohio and elsewhere around the country), etc. The Trump voters will still support Trump in the primaries, and if the GOP screws with the rules and opens the primaries, we will never vote for Sasse, Kasich, etc. in a general election. We will stay home. This is a GIFT to the Democrats because it will destroy the Republican Party and ensure the Democrats get back in power. If so, the Democrats using Republicans to take out a Republican and gain power without doing any heavy lifting is an ingenious strategy.
“They see weakness in this president,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. “Look, it’s not a nice business we’re in.”
It's not nice because of people like John McCain. John McCain doesn't care if the Republicans are in power. John McCain cares if the establishment is in power. By the way, his approval rating with Democrats is 74% vs 39% with Republicans. The Republican Party members don't want John McCain types running their government.
In the wider world of conservative Trump opponents, William Kristol, editor at large of The Weekly Standard, said he had begun informal conversations about creating a “Committee Not to Renominate the President.”
“We need to take one shot at liberating the Republican Party from Trump, and conservatism from Trumpism,” Mr. Kristol said.
We most certainly do not. Bill Kristol needs to face the fact that his brand of "conservatism" has failed. He's no conservative. He's a loser who preens on Twitter for attention by Tweeting anti-Trump rhetoric so he can get likes and Retweets from "The Resistance". Those people are using Bill. He is a means to their end to take down Trump. If he got his way and got an establishment candidate in place, all those people would turn on him in a heart beat.
Trump won the nomination with the most votes in GOP primary history. Trump managed to do what Republicans hadn't done in years - crack the Rust Belt and get crossover votes from Democrats. He won states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that no one thought possible. Instead of seizing this opportunity, the Republicans like Bill Kristol want to go back to the failed, establishment strategy that cost them two elections.
McCain LOST.
Romney LOST.
16 Establishment candidates LOST.
Trump draws massive crowds that fill arenas consistently. Do they honestly think Kasich or Sasse could do something like that?
Instead of embracing their victory and their President who helped bring some of them to victory on his coattails, the GOP continues to fight him. Their solution, go back to the way it was. They want open borders, free/bad trade deals, foreign wars and regime change, and amnesty. Amnesty would likely lead to the end of the Republican Party as I would presume most people here illegally would tend to vote Democrat if given citizenship...even by a GOP President. They don't care if they lose elections because the establishment is the same at the top. As long as they have their special interest, lobbyist, and donor money rolling in and their power, they don't care who is President. Trump is a threat to their carefully cultivated system.
The article goes on to talk about others who might run such as Cotton who has visited Iowa and is hosting a two day fundraiser that's $5,000 a person. That would be a betrayal as he was a Trump supporter.
Then the article goes into a long discussion about Mike Pence who they say keeps a very full schedule and has built his own network of donors. This part was interesting:
The vice president created his own political fund-raising committee, Great America Committee, shrugging off warnings from some high-profile Republicans that it would create speculation about his intentions. The group, set up with help from Jack Oliver, a former fund-raiser for George W. Bush, has overshadowed Mr. Trump’s own primary outside political group, America First Action, even raising more in disclosed donations
It doesn't surprise me the establishment would give more money to Mike Pence than to Trump and says this money is to support.
Mr. Pence’s aides, however, have been less restrained in private, according to two people briefed on the conversations. In a June meeting with Al Hubbard, an Indiana Republican who was a top economic official in Mr. Bush’s White House, an aide to the vice president, Marty Obst, said that they wanted to be prepared to run in case there was an opening in 2020 and that Mr. Pence would need Mr. Hubbard’s help, according to a Republican briefed on the meeting. Reached on the phone, Mr. Hubbard declined to comment.
Mr. Ayers has signaled to multiple major Republican donors that Mr. Pence wants to be ready.
That's very disturbing IF TRUE. What do they mean "in case"? For his part, Obst denies this and says that such talk of Pence running is 2020 is "beyond ridiculous".
Pence, for his part, has denied that he's plotting against Trump and says the money is to help Congressional candidates. He has still praised him in public and supports him behind the scenes as well per even this piece. I don't believe Mike Pence is the sort that would ever do this. He is a good, Christian man, and I do not believe he would try to betray Trump in such a manner. I believe this is the New York Times trying to divide Trump and Pence and cause trouble.
The article ends with wild speculation that Nikki Haley would run against Trump with Lindsay Graham quoted as saying she's more like him than Trump. I agree with Lindsay there. Yes. Yes she is. I don't believe she would do that, but it would be a betrayal if true.
It’s the surrender monkey stuff Drudge has been pushing.
We can expect anything from desperate Democrats and pearl-clutchers.
Psy-ops.
This is laughable. If the job numbers keep going up, Trump will win by a larger margin than the first time.
I’m beginning to think the Psy Ops folks are here.
HOW MANY TIMES is this gonna be posted in various forms from various papers?
And why?
Jeez it’s almost depressing to come on here lately.
Doom and gloom mother ####ers.
I hold open the idea that President Trump may decide (or even already has decided) to hold office only for one term. In that case, it’s only prudent for Pence and others to plan. Remember that President Trump is no spring chicken and may not want to suffer these DC swamp clowns for too long.
"...Republicans Make Moves For 2020..."
New York Times = Garbage
1 day before the election they predicted that Hillary would win big and now they are predicting what will happen in 3 years?
I just don’t see anybody capable of beating Trump in either party. His opponents are all weaker than the opponents he had last year. Sasse, Cotton, Kamala? LOL
Get a humility injection, idiots! Trump beat the CRAP out of ALL of you, without your support, and you're so butt-hurt about that, that you can't learn the damn lesson and become more LIKE him!
If you would all stop behaving like spoiled children, plotting to become king of the sandbox again, some day... Listen to the deafening cheers of the voters and GET ON BOARD!
Hopefully the Russia crap can get put to bed, although who knows when with Mueller and his massive team of Democrats who intend to investigate every aspect of Trump’s life probably. He also needs to get some legislative wins, but it could be the Republicans are deliberately stymieing him from doing so. However, that will backfire because no one will vote for a party in which they can’t pass legislation. Of course, as I said above, I don’t know if they care who is President as long as the establishment is in power.
Trump has done good things, but his poll numbers are low, and I believe some of that could be fixed with a good communications strategy and better promotion.
I blame MD -— this ain’t the first type of this Democrat propaganda he’s pushed.
Me, I’m waiting for more things to fail (their plots) - and more liberals to freak out.
Trump is already doing campaign rallies and raising money. Every indication from him and the staff is that he is running in 2020. Trump is not a quitter and will fight the whole 8 years if he has to.
Stopped reading right there. They have nothing to say, that I want to hear.
I always knew this about Sasse and Kasich, but very disappointed in Cotton (lots of Trump voters got him elected) and Pence.
And Pence is a poor “wingman.” I’ve never seen him face the opposition like the courageous Gorka, Miller, or Conway. Pro-Trumpers will remember who hid during the conflict, Michael. Don’t think it’ll be that easy to garner our support.
One day or eight years, he is still President and they will NEVER be able to reject or deny the FACT that DJT was POTUS #45!
[ New York Times ]
All the Democrat lies that are fit to print!
And if the trend of employment of the forgotten happens across America, think of the re-election possibilities!!!!
They may think that they can demoralize the grass root and get them back to their fold. Instead they will find out that their base is only 25% of entire voting population while Dems are close to over 45%.
Don't be cute. You are walking into political suicide.
I’ms so embarrassed. Who’s MD?
It seems like it should be obvious if you’re using initials and I dont know!! :)
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