Posted on 02/29/2016 7:19:25 AM PST by HomerBohn
Is Mitt Romney about to enter the race for the Republican nomination? As I have written about repeatedly, the Republican establishment is absolutely desperate to keep Donald Trump out of the White House. If it comes to it, they will move heaven and earth to make sure that he is defeated – even if that means Hillary Clinton wins the election. Right now, Trump has won three of the first four contests on the schedule, and he is projected to win almost every state on Super Tuesday. This would put him on a clear path toward winning the nomination, and so establishment insiders are in full-blown panic mode. At this point, two different plans are being put forward for how to proceed if Trump continues to roll. One is to have Marco Rubio exit the race so that Mitt Romney can run against Trump, and the other is to run a third party candidate against Trump and Clinton in the fall.
Perhaps this sounds like wild speculation to you, but these things are actually being discussed behind closed doors right now. For example, just consider what Republican insider Roger Stone just told WND…
In a bitter fight for its life, establishment GOP leaders have decided to block Donald Trump’s nomination at all costs, even if it means losing the presidency to Hillary Clinton, says Roger Stone, co-author of the 2015 bestselling book “The Clintons’ War on Women,” and the recently published “Jeb! and the Bush Crime Family.”
“The big fix is in,” Stone, a former adviser to Trump, told WND in an exclusive telephone interview Sunday.
Stone also told WND that establishment leaders have given Marco Rubio until March 15th. If he does not win Florida, he is out and Romney is in…
“Rubio has been given until Tuesday and if he doesn’t win the Florida primary, the establishment GOP leaders have decided to dump Rubio in favor of drafting Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential nominee who lost to Barack Obama in 2012,” he explained. “If Rubio cannot win Florida, then Rubio drops out and Romney is in.”
“The GOP establishment’s secret plan is to back Romney against Trump in the hopes of winning enough delegates in the primaries after Super Tuesday to block Trump on the first ballot at the GOP national nominating convention in Cleveland,” he added.
Stone made similar comments during an interview with Alex Jones. During that interview, he explained that the Rubio campaign was given 25 million dollars by big GOP donors, and 75 million dollars was allocated “to stop Trump”…
The Koch Bros. met with GOP millionaires and billionaires Thursday night to pool together over $75 million to stop Trump and are going to use Mitt Romney as ‘Plan B’ if Rubio fails to gain traction on Super Tuesday, according to moles who were inside the meeting.
“$75 million to stop Trump and $25 million to Marco Rubio, but they gave Rubio a condition: he’s got to win the Florida primary or he’s out and Mitt Romney’s in,” Stone revealed. “That’s the plan.”
If did Mitt Romney enter the race, it would be an instant game changer.
Romney has the money and the name recognition to hit the ground running, and the plan would be for him to run up as many delegates as possible during the primaries and caucuses that would be held in April, May and June. Some of the biggest states hold their votes then, including New Jersey, New York and California.
Even if Romney could not accumulate more delegates than Trump, that would be okay. The goal would be to just keep Trump from getting the number of delegates that he needs to secure the nomination. That would lead to a “brokered convention”, and as long as Trump does not win on the first ballot Romney would be the nominee. For much more on how this would all play out, please see my previous article entitled “How The Republican Establishment Can Keep Donald Trump From Getting The Nomination“.
And in recent days we have already seen Mitt Romney become much more visible and launch direct attacks at Donald Trump. The following comes from the New York Times…
After a Tuesday night dinner with former campaign aides, during which he expressed a sense of horror at the Republican race, Mr. Romney made a blunt demand Wednesday on Fox News: Mr. Trump must release his tax returns to prove he was not concealing a “bombshell” political vulnerability.
Mr. Trump responded only with casual derision, dismissing Mr. Romney on Twitter as “one of the dumbest and worst candidates in the history of Republican politics.”
You would think that the American people should be allowed to decide who the candidates from each party will be, but that is not how things work.
The elite are very accustomed to being in complete control of the process, and so the Donald Trump phenomenon is totally freaking them out.
The Economist has traditionally been considered a very important mouthpiece for the international banking community, and it often speaks on political matters. But I have never, ever seen the magazine declare that a certain candidate “must be stopped”…
That is an appalling prospect. The things Mr Trump has said in this campaign make him unworthy of leading one of the world’s great political parties, let alone America. One way to judge politicians is by whether they appeal to our better natures: Mr Trump has prospered by inciting hatred and violence. He is so unpredictable that the thought of him anywhere near high office is terrifying. He must be stopped.
Because each additional Trumpism seems a bit less shocking than the one before, there is a danger of becoming desensitised to his outbursts. To recap, he has referred to Mexicans crossing the border as rapists; called enthusiastically for the use of torture; hinted that Antonin Scalia, a Supreme Court justice, was murdered; proposed banning all Muslims from visiting America; advocated killing the families of terrorists; and repeated, approvingly, a damaging fiction that a century ago American soldiers in the Philippines dipped their ammunition in pigs’ blood before executing Muslim rebels. At a recent rally he said he would like to punch a protester in the face. This is by no means an exhaustive list.
If Romney ends up being unwilling or unable to stop Donald Trump, there is another more drastic possibility being considered.
In the early stages of this campaign season, many had wondered if Trump would ultimately mount an independent bid, but now it is actually the Republican establishment that is seriously considering putting together such a campaign. The following comes from Politico…
Conservative donors have engaged a major GOP consulting firm in Florida to research the feasibility of mounting a late, independent run for president amid growing fears that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination.
A memo prepared for the group zeroes in on ballot access as a looming obstacle for any independent candidate, along with actually identifying a viable, widely known contender and coalescing financial support for that person. The two states with the earliest deadlines for independent candidates, Texas and North Carolina, also have some of the highest hurdles for independents to get on the ballot, according to the research.
“All this research has to happen before March 16, when inevitably Trump is the nominee, so that we have a plan in place,” a source familiar with the discussions said.
Of course such an independent campaign would mean almost certain victory for Hillary Clinton.
But the Republican elite would be fine with that. They figure that they would still have control of the House, the Senate and most importantly they would still be in control of the Republican Party. Hillary Clinton is closer to them philosophically than Trump anyway, and four years from now they could get refocused on trying to retake the White House.
I know that all of this sounds really crazy. But as I have said all along, the Republican establishment would literally move heaven and earth to keep Donald Trump out of the White House. Anyone that has inside knowledge of how the political process in this country really works knows that this is true. There is hardly anything that they would not be willing to do in order to stop him.
If Donald Trump does actually become president of the United States someday, it will be a miracle of absolutely epic proportions.
“Maybe I’m just paranoid but this scenario worries me. Mainly because I don’t think this anything the GOPe/RNC/K-Street Lobbyists/CofC would not do to maintain their power and control.
This is why it is so important that we stop squabbling over who is more conservative etc. and get behind Trump as the only candidate that can break the GOPe stranglehold. This is the one thing we ALL want to see!”
I agree with all of this! Post of the Day material!
YES! They don’t care who wins the election if it comes down to Hillary vs. Romney because the both would keep the GOPe machine intact.
Trump is the threat. The ONLY threat. And so they will do something that looks stupid if you’re only playing checkers which is brilliant to them as chessmasters. Four or even eight years in the WH is nothing compared to their decades of accumulated power and the ability to maintain great wealth and influence for their friends.
There’s a winner. Go ahead, make my day, kill the GOPe.
They must be getting really concerned that Trump might actually win the presidency and kick their butts off the gravy train.
How many states could an entry this late still make that ballot deadline for?
we could say the same about Cruz.
Republicans believe that control and survival of the GOP is synonymous with survival of America.
News Flash! America is America without the Republican Establishment and their privileged insiders.
and then he would have to win a majority of delegates in at least 8 states.
Not worth the paper it’s written on.
what leap of faith did they take to think that romney could beat trump? is there something in their cool aid?
Wasn’t Willard a rat?
Just a snippet of Wiki background on the Koch brothers:
“Former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough, co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, has pointed out that, although their critics are usually unaware of the fact, the Koch brothers have supported more than just what are generally considered conservative causes. They opposed George W. Bush on many issues, are pro-choice, support same sex marriage, and had worked closely with the Obama White House for the Obama administration’s criminal justice reform initiatives that aligned with their own”.
LOL!
Totally agree.....Anyone other than Trump would be “politics as usual” from “Sodom on the Potomac”...
That, sir, is a great cartoon.
Some agreement.
Normally at this point in the election cycle the GOP would be gearing up for attacks on their anticipated Democratic rival for the White House. But party leaders are so distraught at the idea of the blustery businessman heading the ticket, that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has taken to advising candidates to keep their distance from Trump.
According to the New York Times, McConnell is assuring Senate candidates running for reelection that they should feel free to run ads against Trump if they feel he is hurting their own campaigns. According to senators attending private lunches with the Majority Leader, McConnell is taking the approach that Trump will lose badly in the general election and that senators should sell themselves as a bulwark against a Hillary Clinton presidency.
I don’t think he could even carry Utah.
Please, Mitt, I beg you. Please run for president!
This will help to unite the rest of the party behind Trump, of course. And burn up some of GOPe’s money. They’ve got too much money.
Re-read the article or search for the Roger Stone interview, he’s the primary source of this. I hope I’m just being paranoid...
But no, they’re not trying to beat Trump in an election, they’re talking about stealing the nomination from him in a brokered convention (using rules they can change or rig in their favor) and nominating Romney despite whatever happens in the primary. I repeat - I hope I’m just being paranoid!
But who knows what they can do? How much of the convention process is governed by actual law and how much is just party rules? Hence my question above.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.