Political thoughts – 5 "What do we do about Trump?"

Trump.  The political world is in fantasyland, trying to figure out what to do about Donald Trump, who keeps on picking up more delegates.

Let’s start with what ought to be the most obvious scenario, but which is hardly mentioned.  Trump gets enough delegates to secure the nomination.  Looking at his chances of winning in November and his popularity, an increasing number of key party leaders decide to support him simply because they think he can keep surprising people and beat Hillary Clinton.  Possible.

Then, there are all the stop-Trump scenarios.  Republicans fall in line behind Ted Cruz as the only viable GOP alternative.  Think Jeb Bush, Chris Christie.  At least Cruz is a tea party conservative not a wild card like Trump.  And the stop-Trump crowd believes that Trump is a sure loser to Clinton and will help the Democrats on the ticket to the point they can retake the Senate.

Or there’s the spoiler scenario.  The so-called GOP establishment runs its own “independent” candidate in at least a few key states (it’s too late to file as an independent everywhere), ensuring Trump’s defeat by splitting the vote.  The spoiler could even be Cruz who would be expected to carry Texas.

Another spoiler possibility would be former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, who runs in all states.  He thinks that if he participated in the presidential debates, he could prove to be an attractive candidate.  Does he have any scandals?  Could prevent Trump from winning, but does not yet seem plausible.

Or the open convention.  Nobody has enough delegates to win on the first ballot and delegates can vote as they wish after the first vote.  Kasich hopes for this scenario, finally able to convince Republicans that he has their best chance of winning in November.   Reasonable, but it’s hard to believe that Trump and Cruz delegates could rally to him.  Otherwise, it would be more likely that, if nobody had enough delegates, a deal would be negotiated before the convention voting began.

Clinton.  Will win the Democratic nomination.  The NYT supposes that if (a) Sanders wins 60 percent of the remaining delegates and (b) superdelegates always support the delegate-count leader, he could get the nomination.  In the current case, (a) looks impossible and (b) is not a valid assumption.  So she will be the nominee.

Should be pleased by almost any of the GOP scenarios, given that the problems of Trump and Cruz with the electorate should dwarf hers if properly exploited.  But she still needs to be looking for ways to improve the public’s trust.

Polling.  Now we hear that either Trump or Cruz poll well against Clinton.  Two possibilities.  Either the polls about November are meaningless in March, because campaigns, candidates and commercials mean something and we have not yet begun the general election campaign or polls have become relatively less valuable as forecasters due to the lack of random samples (yes, I know it’s my hobby horse) or because people lie to pollsters.

If Trump can be nominated and win the election, this isn’t your parents’ USA.  The days of American democracy calmly accepting the outrageous Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision would be gone.