It was business as usual for the Republican presidential race this weekend. Instead of acting as if he was preparing to actually be the commander-in-chief, Donald Trump was sending out more juvenile tweets as part of his idiotic feud with Fox News host Megyn Kelly (which started with her act of lèse-majesté in asking him a question about his quotes about women). The candidate’s supporters also beat up another protester at one of his rallies and questioned Mitt Romney’s faith. But though much of the nation continues to be appalled by the antics of the Trump road show, the chances to prevent him from winning the GOP nomination and then leading it to a historic defeat in November continue to dwindle.
For that, Trump can thank the loyalty of his supporters who continue to be indifferent to his lack of coherent policies and unpresidential behavior. The craven response of some Republican leaders who have decided that throwing in with someone who would destroy everything their party stands for is preferable to being left on the sidelines is also adding to the sense that his momentum is unstoppable.
But Trump’s chief blessing these days is more a matter of the bizarre judgment of one his remaining opponents than anything else. John Kasich’s decision to campaign intensively in Utah this weekend raises a serious question about either his intentions or his intelligence.
Kasich was buoyed by his victory in his home state primary this past Tuesday. Winning in Ohio was a necessity if Kasich was to continue his quest for the presidency but it’s the only state Kasich has won (his second place finish in New Hampshire with a paltry 16 percent was the only other result he has obtained that could be considered encouraging rather than an abysmal defeat). More to the point, Kasich’s chances of getting to the 1,237 delegates needed for the nomination are exactly zero. Even if he were to win every remaining delegate up for grabs, he’d still fall short. Ted Cruz still has a theoretical chance to do so but the only realistic scenario for preventing Trump from getting to that number before the Cleveland convention is for the frontrunner’s two remaining opponents to work together. That means that they should seek to maximize each other’s chances in the states where either is leading over Trump.
In Utah, where Cruz has the support of both Senator Mike Lee and Mitt Romney, he is believed to be within striking distance of getting an absolute majority of votes. If he makes it over the 50 percent mark, Cruz will get all of the state’s 40 delegates rather than having them distributed proportionally. That would be a blow to Trump since he needs to win 53 percent of those left in order to get to the magic number he needs. A Cruz victory in Utah would also preserve Kasich’s long shot hopes of winning the nomination at a deadlocked convention since there can be no such thing unless Trump starts getting beaten in primaries by either of his remaining opponents. So, rational analysis would dictate that Kasich should have stayed out of Utah and let Cruz win rather than fight for a few extra delegates that won’t make a difference for him. Cruz ought to return the favor if there are any states where Kasich has similar strength.
How then do we explain Kasich’s appearance in Utah yesterday?
Hotair.com speculated on Friday that perhaps Kasich is worried about Cruz winning more states and, therefore, being in a position to join with Trump to prevent Kasich from being able to compete at Cleveland. But if Kasich’s efforts at this point are aimed more at undermining Cruz at this point, it’s not unreasonable to ask whether he is sincere about stopping Trump.
It’s true that a lot of Republicans might prefer Kasich’s mainstream style to Cruz’s brand of Tea Party conservatism. But the notion that the party elders are going to somehow impose the governor on the GOP convention is the stuff of fantasy; not political analysis. After months of voting, it’s painfully obvious that GOP voters don’t want any part of him. Playing the adult in the room when the other candidates were flinging insults at each other in debates was one thing. But his liberal-sounding rhetoric about entitlements and support for President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court show how out of touch he is with most GOP voters.
Kasich’s decision to sabotage Cruz in Utah can therefore only be explained two ways.
If we assume that Kasich is sincere about not wanting Trump to be the party’s nominee, then we have to question his intelligence and judgment. Perhaps his ego, inflated by his Ohio win, has deluded him into thinking that the race is going to be magically transformed and that he will sweep to victory now that the field has narrowed. But even in the Northeast, where presumably his brand of moderation works best in states like Pennsylvania and New York, he looks to be hopelessly behind both Trump and Cruz. There’s no realistic scenario that would involve Kasich even passing Cruz for second place. If he doesn’t understand that he’s going to have to join forces with the Texas senator to stop Trump then he isn’t smart enough to be president.
But if we choose not to believe that the presidential bug has turned an able politician into an idiot, that leaves us with another, less flattering explanation for Kasich: he is looking to help Trump and then be rewarded with some kind of payoff, perhaps as his running mate.
That may sound more like something out of a “House of Cards” script than anything else. But the longer Kasich stays in and prevents Cruz from having a chance at one-on-one matchups with Trump, the more likely it seems that the Ohio governor is angling to make a deal with the frontrunner. Given the fact that both Trump and Kasich share some non-conservative stands on issues, that’s not as crazy as it sounds. He may say he isn’t going to cave to Trump, but it’s the only explanation for his behavior that doesn’t involve labeling him a dolt. If that’s what’s afoot, then Trump’s hold on the nomination must be upgraded from likely to certain. In which case Republicans who can’t stomach Trump might as well start examining some of those crazy ideas about creating a third party that would put forward an alternative like either former Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn or former Texas Governor Rick Perry.
Donald Trump is on his way to victory because he harnessed the anger of many frustrated voters and because he is a master of marketing and media manipulation. But future historians will also have to take into account the way some of his Republican competitors helped knock each other off. The attacks of Jeb Bush and Chris Christie helped destroy Marco Rubio. If at this point Kasich assists Trump in taking out Ted Cruz, his sincerity is put into question. While a year ago many of us believed the Republicans could choose from a large group of serious and well-qualified candidates, it turns out we may have been wrong about that. Instead of a deep field, all the GOP may have had was largely a set of fools and sellouts ready to assist a charlatan as he guided the party on a march of folly that will lead to disaster in November.
