The donor class never dropped a substantial ad-bomb on Trump. The New York vulgarian didn’t exactly sneak up on the GOP, given that he announced his candidacy in June.
I thought there were many viable candidates. But the GOP electorate consistently showed 60-70% support for outsider candidates, with Trump pulling in only about half of that for long periods of time. That was new: outsiders only took about 15% during the 2012 GOP clown car primary.
Some argue that Trump was sui generis, a fluke. Others say that he was just a talented demagogue and that demagogues can rise at any time, even if they usually flame out in the end. But that doesn’t explain the residual support for outsiders from the GOP electorate. Again during the fall Trump’s take of the outsider vote was consistently less than 60%.
Something was different this year. I wouldn’t call it anger: reporters write about voter anger during every Presidential election. I perceive it as a cumulative effect of the nonsense debt and hate debt that the GOP and conservative media have been racking up for years. But that is merely the best hypothesis on offer. I can’t help but think there might be better ones.
Rubio’s badly wounded but I wouldn’t say it’s over just yet. If the republicans suffer a disastrous defeat this year then he can be the safer candidate in 2020.
Republicans have been courting uneducated voters for years and it finally caught up with them. The question now is whether Hillary can inspire enough opposition in November.
Heck, Perry ran again this year. And with the glasses, everyone forgot how stupid he sounded last time around Maybe Marco just needs a pair of horn rims and a pocket protector.
Given that Perry never made it past the kiddie table debates, I’d say the public forgot everything about him, not just his past stupidity. Which, granted, was still a step up from 2012.
Rubio didn’t lose because he isn’t a potentially strong candidate – he still has potential if the republican party doesn’t destroy itself. His problem, as I see it, was that he was pushed into the race a little too soon. In 2013, he was going to be the Republican Obama. But as the Trump phenomenon revealed, the party didn’t want their own Obama. They wanted their anti-Obama. I can’t take credit for that observation but I forgot where I read that. It seems pretty spot-on though.
Even if Donald hadn’t run, Ted Cruz probably would have pushed Rubio aside. He had laid down an extremely impressive ground game, and he was the one guy who actually landed a few blows to Trump’s chances. Had Ted not been so aggressive in plucking delegates when everyone wasn’t looking he might still have blocked Trump before Cleveland. Rubio simply wasn’t prepared for the kind of fight that Cruz and Trump were going to give him.
Maybe, just maybe, Trump and the Republicans get beaten handily and maybe, just maybe, that leads to some reflection - the kind that should have taken place after 2012.
Maybe Marco just needs a pair of horn rims and a pocket protector.