Could Republicans have had a viable Presidential candidate this year?

Politics & Elections
1

Trump is higher in the polls currently than one could wish, and I presume (although I may well be wrong) that without his constant controversies and political sins he might be doing rather better than he is.

I can’t think of any of the crop of (was it) 14 other candidates that came forward that would be doing better - Rubio clearly doesn’t have the stones for it, Jeb! is just a colorless cipher, Cruz is too hateful and didactic and extreme, Christie has a lot of baggage (some of it showing on the outside), Carson was a weird somnambulist, and so on down the list. Kasich is often mentioned as less extreme and less disturbing than many of the others, but he is still pretty boring. The one I thought would have legs was Scott Walker, but he was one of the first to fade.

So might there have been anyone with actual charisma and character who would have made a strong candidate against Hillary, who has lots of problems of her own? Who would your best shot have been?

2

Kasich probably had the best shot. But any of the ones you mentioned would have risked a third party wingnut revolt, perhaps led by Trump.

3

At this point, it’s difficult to imagine that a Republican who has a viable shot in the general is able to make it through the primary.

4

Who do you think would’ve won the nomination if Trump hadn’t been running?

5

Yeah, pleasing the GOP primary electorate almost inevitably pushes you too far to the right to win in the general.

6

Yes but none of them chose to run against the TeaBaggers which is why my party is due for a split.

7

In retrospect, given Trump’s reluctance to self-finance and his utterly non-existent ground game, I think it’s clear that Trump’s third party threat was just hot air.

I think in the long run Rince Priebus and the RNC establishment bears most of the fault for this catastrophe, with their their stupid pledge which did nothing but hamstring their candidates. They should have stepped in from the start, like they did the last time David Duke ran for office (and of course, they are notably silent about Duke’s current Senate run.)

8

I’m as big a Democrat as you’re likely to find but this thread is absurdly optimistic. It’s clear that the Republicans do have a viable candidate this year, and God help us that he loses.

9

Kasich is the only one I would have to take another look at.

wiki

Kasich is a "firm abortion opponent": bad

In a speech in April 2012, Kasich acknowledged that climate change is real and is a problem: For a republican, pretty damn good.

To offset a state budget deficit, Kasich proposed selling five state prisons to the for-profit prison industry.= bad

As of July 2015, Kasich had presided over the executions of twelve inmates and commuted the death sentences of five inmates; Neutral.

in late 2015 and early 2016, Kasich said he was open to legalization of medical marijuana.= good.

In 2013, Kasich signed into law a $62 billion two-year state budget.[79] The budget provided for a 10-percent state income tax cut phased in over three years, and an increase in the state sales tax from 5.5 percent to 5.75 percent. It also included a 50% tax cut for small business owners on the first $250,000 of annual net income= bad

Kasich has campaigned for a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution =bad

*LGBT issues

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Kasich struck a more moderate tone compared to his Republican opponents. In June 2015, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that there is a fundamental right to same-sex marriage under the Fourteenth Amendment, Kasich said that he was “obviously disappointed”[158][159] and that he believes in “traditional marriage,”[160] but that the ruling was “the law of the land and we’ll abide by it” and that it was “time to move on” to other issues.[160] Kasich indicated that he did not support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to overturn the decision.[160] In response to a debate question about how he would explain his position on same-sex marriage to one of his daughters if she were gay, Kasich responded, “The court has ruled, and I said we’ll accept it. And guess what, I just went to a wedding of a friend of mine who happens to be gay. Because somebody doesn’t think the way I do doesn’t mean that I can’t care about them or can’t love them. So if one of my daughters happened to be that, of course I would love them and I would accept them. Because you know what? That’s what we’re taught when we have strong faith.”[161]

In September 2015, Kasich commented on the highly publicized case of Kim Davis (the Rowan County, Kentucky clerk who refused to comply with a federal court order directing her to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples), saying: “Now, I respect the fact that this lady doesn’t agree but she’s also a government employee, she’s not running a church, I wouldn’t force this on a church. But in terms of her responsibility I think she has to comply. I don’t think —I don’t like the fact that she’s sitting in a jail, that’s absurd as well. But I think she should follow the law.”[162]*= For a republican, pretty damn good.

While in the U.S. House of Representatives, Kasich had a mixed record on gun policy= OK

Obamacare= flip floper.

Immigration= For a republican, pretty damn good.

As a Chief Executive, there could be worse (in fact with GWB there was worse, far worse). But I am scared of what any GOP prez would do with SCOTUS appointments.

10

I imagine Cruz would have come out on top of Trump hadn’t run.

11

Well, the data I saw consistently had Cruz polling better against Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump – and Kasich polling better against Hillary than any of 'em, but leave that aside for now. I figure, sure, Cruz isn’t amiable and charming; but isn’t Hillary second only to Trump in the all-time ‘disliked’ category?

Given the polls, I figure he didn’t so much need to win; he just needed to not lose.

12

Silent you mean, except for the head of the RNC denouncing Duke and stating that the RNC would not support his candidacy?

13

Sure. The GOP “deep field” backfired on them. All the responsible candidates* stole votes from each other so that the one utter idiot to was able to garner a greater proportion of the votes, leaving him to appear as though he was actually the most popular. There is a certain amount of momentum that the leaders tend to pick up throughout the primary season, so the more Trump won, the more momentum he picked up.
Had there been fewer Republican candidates, initially, the votes would not have been as evenly distributed among the serious candidates and Trump would not have had the appearance of a “winner,” thus attracting more momentum.

To use a radio station analogy: The Cleveland/Akron radio station with the largest market is a Country/Western station. This fact, if seen out of context would indicate that Cleveland has a huge C&W audience. The reality is that there are only two C&W stations, one of which has a dominant position in the market, while there are at least 10 Rock and Roll stations fighting it out for market share. The audience for those stations is many times the size of the market of the two C&W stations, even if the “Number 1” station is C&W. Had there been fewer Republican candidates, one of them would have probably edged out Trump early on, leaving him the role of Ross Perot.

(I would also be curious as to how many of the early states allowed cross-party voting in primaries and how many of Trump’s votes were Democrats and Independents regarding Clinton as a given and, thus, voting for Trump to cause Republicans grief.)

  • Even if one is entirely at odds with GOP positions, in general, it remains true that a number of those candidates were responsible people, (Carson and Cruz clearly excepted).
14

Yes. This is an artifact of winner take all voting. Approval voting would mitigate against it.

In 2015-16 there were 4 outsiders running and 10 other sorts of candidates. If there were 10 outsiders running and 4 mainstreamers, then a mainstreamer would probably have won.

This happened in 1980 as well. Republican moderates split up most of the vote while Reagan had the right wing all to himself.
I think there may have been a second factor involved. Huckabee ran as an outsider, but he wasn’t unacceptable to the establishment. But Cruz was. And Cruz ran 2nd to Trump late in the game. If Ted Cruz wasn’t a Senator, the establishment might have been able to successfully coalesce behind the #2 candidate, whomever he was. Or if Jeb had focused his fire on Trump early on, rather than running negative ads against his fellow mainstreamers, that might have altered the timeflow. In short the second factor is historical accident. Jeb Bush, Rubio and Kasich weren’t exactly inspiring, but they were viable candidates.

15

And yet, to listen to the GOP leadership talk now, they think nothing is wrong at all, and are all pulling for their candidate, the bestest one of the bunch. Just like when they foisted Palin into the game. They will not admit mistakes of the past, nor now. They are convinced they will win.

16

Trump seems inevitable in hindsight but I think his victory has distorted people’s memories and his path was a lot more fragile than people think.

Everyone was looking at his performance in the early states as a bellwether and a second place in Iowa and a first in New Hampshire was enough to get the ball rolling. However, the electorate was already primed for a “lots of smoke, no fire” candidate from the 2012 election and I think a third place finish in either would have caused the electorate in general to lose faith in him and he would have quickly faded into obscurity.

Crucially though, this was a plausible outcome, even if he had received the same number of votes. He only got 24% in Iowa and 35% in NH. In a less contested field, that could have easily been a 3rd and 2nd place. Trump never got above 50% in any state until New York where his candidacy finally started looking inevitable.

I think if either Rubio or Bush had decided not to run or had made a fatal error early in the campaign, the other would be the nominee by now. I believe the Bush low energy perception was the product of him failing, not the cause of it and, if he had shored up his support from the moderates early, he’d plod along to the nomination in much the same way Romney had, picking up a reliable 30 - 60% in each state which his rivals would win one or two but not be able to mount a coherent national strategy.

Of course, the other fatal error in this campaign was the crowded field meant that all the top tier candidates were obsessed with sniping at each other, believing they could deal with Trump once the time came. In a less contested field, I think the attacks on Trump would have started a lot earlier, when they would have had much more of an effect in moulding public opinion.

17

I missed that about Reince. Whose name I misspelled. Screw it. I’mma start calling him Rincewind.

I note that Duke is officially on the ballot as a Republican, since he’s a registered Pub and he paid the fee for the label. The LA Republicans are looking to change the rules, but I don’t think that will apply before November.

I also can’t help noting that Reince waited until the sign up period was officially over before taking his stand against Duke. Now there’s nothing that can be done about his running as a Republican.

Gosh, if only Reince had sent out his tweet before the 23rd …

18

Rubio would’ve done it; he had the social conservative chops to unite his party (on abortion, LGBT issues), the foreign policy critique of Obama that would’ve brought the GOP together and not scared away from FP Republicans Trump has alienated, and yea, by being non-light skinned, he likely would have bested Romney with Hispanics and potentially blacks as well. The suburban voters who don’t like Trump might have liked Rubio.

If Trump had not run and illegal immigration weren’t THE issue for the GOP primary electorate (and making Rubio’s immigration reform votes big issues), I think Rubio would’ve been it; he’d have taken down Jeb! And enough so to get big money to go wit him.

19

I think there are several candidates who could have defeated Hillary very easily. Kasich would probably have been the one with the best shot. A popular governor with a strong record of successfully governing one of the largest states in the country, free of significant scandals, intelligent, well-rounded, and competent in debates, I see no reason not to think that he would have done well in the general election. I don’t think charisma would have been a problem, if he was running against Hillary.

All of this could be said about Jeb! as well. Chris Christie is good at speaking in front of cameras and expressing his point succinctly and well. He has a strong intellectual grasp on economic issues and would have been formidable in the general. Rubio would also have been strong.

20

No.

The Republican Party is forbidden from ever again holding the presidency.