Posted on 03/21/2016 9:08:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The best line from any Trump stump speech this year is “Everyone wants Washington to change, and that means changing everyone in Washington.” No, wait — I’m mixed up. Trump didn’t say that. It was Tom Coburn, announcing his retirement from the Senate, who did. Coburn was raging against a corrupt establishment in D.C. back when Trump was still firing people on “The Apprentice.” Such was his despair at what he encountered in the capital that he spent the last few years calling for a convention of the states to fix Washington. He’s a perfect choice in many ways for #NeverTrumpers — conservative yet anti-establishment, experienced yet uncorrupted by his time in the Senate. I’ve never had an opportunity to vote for him, but I’d welcome it.
Would Coburn maximize the anti-Trump vote on the right as a third-party candidate, though? I’m not sure.
But should that effort falter, leading conservatives are prepared to field an independent candidate in the general election, to defend Republican principles and offer traditional conservatives an alternative to Mr. Trump’s hard-edged populism. They described their plans in interviews after Mr. Trump’s victories last Tuesday in Florida and three other states…
Among the recruits under discussion are Tom Coburn, a former Oklahoma senator who has told associates that he would be open to running, and Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who was suggested as a possible third-party candidate at a meeting of conservative activists on Thursday in Washington.
Mr. Coburn, who left the Senate early last year to receive treatment for cancer, said in an interview that Mr. Trump “needs to be stopped” and that he expected to back an independent candidate against him. He said he had little appetite for a campaign of his own, but did not flatly rule one out.
“I’m going to support that person,” Mr. Coburn said, “and I don’t expect that person to be me.”
The best thing about Coburn as the head of the Anti-Trump Party is that it’d be harder to demagogue him as an establishment pawn than it would most other independent challengers. If Romney jumped in, Trump would attack him as a last gasp by the mega-rich country-club set to blow up the GOP after We the People took it over. That doesn’t work with a soft-spoken Oklahoman like Coburn; he’d run as a populist himself, but one who thinks reform requires reducing federal power instead of putting Classier People in charge of it. He could and would critique the system with the jaundiced eye of someone who understands its failings from the inside. He’d do well enough at the presidential debates as a contrast with Trump, making the case against Washington yet sounding like he actually knows what he’s talking about, that he might move some conservative votes from Trump’s column to his. And he’d have a fair shot at winning his home state, which is worth seven electoral votes. (Oklahoma, remember, went for Cruz this year, not Trump.) That’s not much, but which states would Romney flip realistically? Utah? That’s worth just six.
Coburn’s problem is that he might not have enough of a soapbox to muscle in on the debate between Trump and Hillary. Conservative activists know and love him, but that’s a tiny niche. Coburn could jump in, enjoy a week of fanfare, and then slip off the radar for 98 percent of the country. That’s Romney’s key advantage: He has phenomenal name recognition from his 2012 run and he has a network of donors who could bankroll a semi-serious independent effort. He wouldn’t win, needless to say, but casual anti-Trump voters looking to park their votes somewhere are way more likely to hear about it if Romney jumps in than if Coburn does. Arguably Coburn’s also an inferior choice to Rick Perry, who enjoys a bit more name recognition thanks to two failed presidential runs. Perry’s problem is that casual voters may know him mainly as the guy who couldn’t remember the three agencies he wanted to get rid of during his 2012 campaign. He’d start out being viewed skeptically by casual anti-Trumpers, but a few strong media appearances early on could weaken that skepticism. Having backed Ted Cruz in the primaries, Perry might be rewarded by donations from Cruz’s Texas base of wealthy conservatives for his third-party bid. And Perry, probably more than any other independent challenger, could put Texas itself in play in the general election. Even if he didn’t win the state outright, which would be a tall order with Democrats unified behind Hillary and Republicans split between him and Trump, pulling just 20 percent of the vote there would likely turn the state blue, all but ending Trump’s chances. If the #NeverTrump challenge to Trump is a pure spoiler effort than Perry’s probably the best choice for that reason alone.
But it sounds like he’s not interested:
@GovernorPerry has no interest in running as a 3rd party candidate. For the good of the country, he wants the GOP to unite around @tedcruz
— Jeff Miller (@JeffMillerCA2TX) March 20, 2016
Jeff Miller was Perry’s presidential campaign manager last year. Is that a sincere Sherman statement or just a provisional one, to be revisited if/when Cruz loses Wisconsin in a few weeks and suddenly it really does look like Trump’s on his way to the nomination? No third-party aspirant wants to start making noise about running now when Cruz still has a shot to stop Trump in the primary, but if he underperforms in the next few primaries it might be time for righties to start thinking outside the box.
Stupid. You can’t ask for, on the surface anyway, a more conservative offering than Cruz.. Rhetorical wise he’s the most conservative voice in a while... In practice he’s a party guy beholden to the same folks as every other party guy, but as far as voice you aren’t going to get more conservative and by and large the voters have rejected him as their standard barer.
Any 3rd party run is just a play to put Hillary in the White House which will confirm to the plurality if not the flat out majority of voters that there really isn’t a damn bit of difference between the two parties at any functional level. And pretty much ensure the GOP is done as a national party.
The Republican leadership have to be some of the stupidest people on the planet.
Big pal of Obama and McCain.
Don’t bet on Cotton being on the side of the citizens just yet. He attended that soire in SC with The Cheap Labor Express to plot how to take out Trump.
They’ve made it clear what they are. They keep talking, no one is listening. I bet the last two years their constituent call and email volume has dropped. The game is up. Trump is the first chance we’ve had to upset the table. New game. New Deal.
“At this point the only Senator who could run which I would not mock (their partisans too) is Tom Cotton. “
THIS Tom Cotton?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3411669/posts
We need a list of these vermin so we'll know who NOT to vote for in the future. I have a list of some of them who attended the Sea Island, GA meeting but I want an itemized list of all these globalists broken down by GOPe politicians, GOPe media websites, & other categories. I need to know who to blacklist. Have you seen one?
Where did I ever say "all" Trump supporters?
Thats pretty weak analysis by you. Trump signed the pledge. He’s about to win this fair and square. And all these boastful conservatives are talking about 3rd party essentially burning down the house so badly there will be nothing left to rebuild. If you are, as many of these people say they are, Constitutionalists, then you don’t really mean it when your methods aim to empower Hillary to crush the 1st and 2d Amendments.
More than half of Trump’s voters are conservative so..... good luck with that.
If Trump goes into the convention just a handful of votes shy of an absolute majority, but has FAR more delegates than any other candidate and the GOPe picks someone not even on the ballot, why yes, that would indeed be the “convention process” at work.
And the “convention process” would guarantee Hillary the Presidency. Great process, hey? Especially for the GOPe party apparatchiks who’ll get to keep their cushy six figures jobs even though the rest of us lose our country forever.
And Trump opponents wouldn't have to do anything special for Hillary to win - he would lose to Hillary in a landslide. Even without a 3rd party candidate from the GOP, up to 40% of the primary voters would rather stay home or vote 3rd party over voting for Trump. If even half of them were to follow through, Trump loses big.
I think Trump has already guaranteed that outcome.
how funny. he might get a 1/2 percent of the vote MAYBE.
Trump very likely has enough support to win as a third party candidate. He is the only possible candidate who can defeat the democrats with their vote fraud. In any case, if the party steals this from Trump and gives it to someone such as Romney or Bush, tthen Trump would be doing right by this country, running as third party (and winning) by offering people a viable alternative to the Washington cartel/uniparty/globalist cabal. Mr. Trump does not need the Republican party; the Republican party needs him.
He is as delusional as Lindsey Graham when he announced.
When was the last time a party’s own front-runner was targeted for defeat?
Ronald Reagan.
Trouble with you own writing?
Trump supporters is an implication of all, or you would have modified it with the word "some"
This is just throwing a fishing line in the water and seeing if anything bites. Or nibbles.
Now you are dreaming.
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