[Defiant]

What I am saying is that Trump does not need the establishment's help. Everyone hates them for being the establishment. There was no such sense in 1980, no social media, no blogs or right wing talk radio. Reagan needed their money. Trump doesn't. Reagan hated Bush and didn't want him, but he was talked into it. In retrospect, it was his worst mistake.

Trump should not repeat the mistake. He can win without sucking up to the GOPe, and he will be more popular for not doing that.

If he picks Kasich, I will still support him, but not as enthusiastically, and I fear that many won't support him at all.

[JPJones]

“He can win without sucking up to the GOPe,”

That would be the most satisfying outcome!

[lentulusgracchus]

Reagan hated Bush and didn't want him, but he was talked into it. In retrospect, it was his worst mistake.

Concurring bump. Totally. The Bushmen basically did a palace coup, one job at a time. By the time it was "Bush's turn" in 1988, there wasn't a Reaganaut left in the Administration except for (perhaps) Ed Meese. The Bush people pushed them out and tried to corner Ronnie from their first day in office. Reagan's biggest day-to-day fight was to keep James Baker and the rest of the Bushbots from painting him into a corner.

Nixon didn't like Bush, either, but Bush knew a ton of people (Bonesman and all that) and was always underfoot, wanting something. Nixon eventually appointed him to run the RNC just to get rid of him. (From a tale out of school passed along by L.A. Times writer Murray Kempton, who became a lunch-buddy in Nixon's San Clemente retirement years.)