I don’t think they can pull running a third party presidential candidate off. It would be suicidal.
You miss the point. They don’t care if they win at that point. As long as they can put down the conservative opposition, they don’t care if the democrat wins. They won’t have to split off many votes to guarantee a Hilary or Sanders win.
It won’t be the GOP by name.
It’ll be the big money donors. They pick a guy and back him.
If Cruz is the nominee, they can just stop the money flow and defeat Cruz that way. Trump is tougher. They’d have to split the vote most likely.
They want to keep control over the purse strings (1.1 trillion a year).
You think they’re going to risk losing that?