#StopTrump Stillborn
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Politico has a remarkable piece this morning that portrays the “Stop Trump” movement as being in total disarray, with some senior Republicans wondering whether it’s time to give up and accept the once-unthinkable nomination of Donald Trump.
The simple summary of Politico’s story — and some of the other reporting out there this morning — is this: The only goal the Stop Trump movement has agreed upon is denying Trump the outright majority of delegates he needs to clinch the nomination. Even if that were to happen, there is no clear consensus on what would come next — at a contested convention, who would the nominee be instead? And in addition to that, some top Republicans are now wondering whether they should give up on even the goal of forcing a contested convention in the first place.
Some Republicans worry that a contested convention could do more damage than not.
[…]
On top of that, Republicans with influence over the party rules are now saying that there’s no scenario in which another non-candidate Republican — Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney, for example — could be given the nomination. That would appear to leave only Kasich (who is a long shot to come in second in delegates) or Cruz (who is almost as unpalatable to many Republicans as Trump, and arguably could be nearly as disastrous — or, who knows, perhaps even more so — in a general election).
The fact that the Rules Committee seems unwilling to consider a white knight like Ryan or Mittens is particularly interesting. If so, the GOP’s choices are 1)Trump, 2)Ted Cruz, a candidate not obviously more electable than Trump in the abstract who had to depose Trump in order to be nominated, or 3)John Kasich, a better candidate than Trump or Cruz in the abstract but probably not if he was selected ahead of them despite receiving far fewer delegates than either. Good luck with that! And if most GOP elites were to conclude that Trump was the least bad option for them, they’re probably right.