I wonder how close his (or any candidate’s) final fundraising appeal was emailed to the official announcement of his withdrawal. Kinda takes chutzpah to raise funds when you obviously know what’s coming next.
The problem is that there are plenty of Republican voters who might not entirely agree with a “vile, racist and hateful as possible” candidate, but will vote for them anyway because they are wedded to voting for the Republican candidate. Being an avowed racist, sexual predator, or incompetent insurrectionist are no longer disqualifiers even for quote-moderate-unquote Republicans who should have taken umbrage over attacks upon the legacy of John McCain and even moreso the censure of his widow Cindy McCain despite the fact that she has never expressed any interest in running for public office.
In more explicit terms, mainline Republican voters have now been conditioned though propaganda, conspiranoia, and normalization of the violation of democratic norms (not just by Trump and his collection of crazy boosters but by ‘normal’ Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley) to accept claims and transgressive behaviors that members in previous eras would have found repellant and unacceptable. Even if Republican voters don’t agree with that behavior, their aversion to ‘losing’ to Democrats (who they perceive as pedophiles, ‘Marxists’, and harbingers of fiscal and moral doom) will still cause them to vote for a racist, hate-spouting, would-be demagogue. It’s the same kind of extreme polarization that leads to the rise of fascism in seemingly sane and stable democracies.
Stranger
Well said. More succintly:
There is now no possible Republican candidate so vile that every single Republican won’t vote for them.
I don’t disagree. But there are plenty of middle-ground voters and former Republicans (including a few on this board) who won’t vote for a racist, hate-spouting, would-be demagogue, but might vote for a non-racist, sense-spouting, democracy-embracing GOP candidate.
After the last 8+ years, the GOP doesn’t deserve to be represented by someone like that. They deserve to lose and lose and lose until no one takes the racist, hate-spouting, would-be demagogues seriously anymore.
Unfortunately, the popularity of “racist, hate-spouting, would-be demagogues” is on the upswing.
Stranger
Yep, it’s easy to be cynical about Christie, but if all he cared about was being on TV and selling books there’s plenty of opportunity for that within the MAGA fold. And it’s a pretty big bonus that it doesn’t require hiring 24 hour security, or standing in front of a heckling mob, pleading with them to listen.
QFT, and frankly I think that the McConnells, Grassleys and Grahams of the Republican party are doing more to normalize Trump than his crazy boosters. I mean, when they say that what Trump spouts is “unfortunate” or “not the way they would have said it” or “not the right thing to dwell on” they are implicitly stating that the sentiment expressed is A-OK, just not good tactically.
Trump is an opportunist who saw what the GOP has been doing to political discourse for the last quarter century (at that point) and was basically unabashed about saying the quiet part out loud. You can thank Goebbels Memorial Chair Emeritus laureate Newt Gingrich (and his mentor, Lee Atwater of “N*gg*r n*gg*r n*gg*r” infamy) for setting up that frame, and McConnell, Grassley, et al for normalizing the idea that political discourse is a venue for grievance and conquest than representative governance and the health of civil society.
Stranger
As I’m watching this (5:25PM on the 13th) they just showed a Tim Scott ad on the news. Chances are, the spot was already paid for, so they ran it anyway.
Took me a while to place him. Then it came back - that boilerplating schlemiel trotted out by the GQP to “rebut” Biden’s first speech to Congress. 
From the Saturday Night Live cold open last weekend:
Tim Scott:
“I have a girlfriend. Listen, about her… She is real. And… I know her. And she is my girlfriend. And… We met through dating. And… For her I feel a real sense of human love.”