How? how does the Republican party leadership get to decide Trump is their candidate, if De Santis (just for instance) starts polling well?
And Democrats in New Jersey have nominated their favourite son, Mehmet Oz, for the New Jersey Hall of Fame!
Oh, I hope that’s true and increases as we approach November. As a fellow-Pennsylvanian, I fear for our state if M is elected to the governorship. Pennsylvania will become Mississippi, or worse. M will win my deep red county for sure, and we’ll be stuck with our cowardly, treasonous congressman for another two years, but I’m hoping the Democratic strongholds will come through enough to send M packing at least. Fingers crossed.
Two more opposite people is hard to imagine.
The key word here is “organize.” To run as a true independent, the campaign would need to be organized from the ground up, which is a completely alien prospect for Trump. He’s simply not capable of organizing anything more complicated than the loop of sellotape that holds his tie to his shirt, and even that’s a dicey proposition from day to day. There’s a reason his political ambitions have always been in the context of an existing party, where he rides in and attempts to seize control of their pre-built machinery. In his whole life, he’s literally never done anything beyond expressing a vision and waving a promise of money to incentivize people to make it happen for him.
And that’s the alternative, for an independent campaign — he’d need to assemble a team of experienced people who would do the actual work. He’s still (bafflingly) able to serve as a center of gravity for attracting ambitious crooks, but he’s thoroughly burned his bridges with pretty much anyone who knows what they’re doing. So while he might be able to get something briefly off the ground, the inexperience of his team would be quickly revealed and the campaign would collapse as a non-starter, and I think he knows that.
If the Republicans reject him, his only real option for sustaining a spoiler campaign is to find another political party to hijack. And those are thin on the ground.
So I say he sabotages the GOP by making a lot of noise from the sidelines — noise which might resemble a campaign from time to time, but which never actually metastisizes into an actual run.
He could always try the Reform Party again. It’d be tough, since he’d have to beat out Rocky de la Fuente for the nomination.