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“I’ll keep you in suspense,” so-called GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump said during the last (thankfully) presidential debate in Las Vegas. His outright refusal to say whether he will accept the results of the election quickly surpassed anything constructive that the uncontrolled candidate said during the Wednesday debate. “I will tell you at the time,” Trump said when asked directly if he would respect the outcome on Nov. 8. That line is good for an upcoming television special, but not for a presidential candidate. In this expect-the-unexpected election, anything can still happen, but one thing is finally clear: Trump is the real Third Party candidate who has usurped the Republican Party. And Democratic members are more than anxious that a similar wild-card candidate could capture their party in the years ahead. Think a younger Bernie Sanders. Or if Elizabeth Warren decides to run within the party structure – while not as flashy as Trump, her positions are as far left as the party can go. But Trump has already increased the hurdles for future GOP presidential candidates to widen the tent, especially regarding the growing number of Hispanic voters. And his likely coming low percentage of Black Americans and women voting for him will be further headwinds for future GOP candidates. During the 2020 presidential campaign, will some “GOP” candidates decide to go it alone rather than run on the Republican ticket, with the Trump and party baggage regarding all those voters? Could be. It’s long overdue for this country to have more mainstream candidates to choose from. Third Party candidates don’t win presidential elections. They don’t like to alter their positions, some of which are way off the mainstream path. Think Trump. But that could change ahead. If Trump were truly a GOP Party candidate, he would have consistently and intelligently raised issues that would have made any other Republican candidate an easy victor against Clinton: coming Supreme Court nominees and the growing negatives of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). On Oct. 12, Minnesota Democratic Governor Mark Dayton said that premiums for 50,000 Minnesotans covered under the plan will rise by 50% next year. “The Affordable Care Act,” Gov. Dayton said, “is no longer affordable.” Manna from heaven for a GOP candidate? Usually. But Trump, despite being the GOP nominee, is not truly a Republican. Also, on Tuesday, Oct. 11, news broke that Clinton’s campaign had communicated with Justice Department officials about a court hearing on her email server — while the FBI was still investigating. But instead he kept on berating Republicans, attacking House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as “very weak and ineffective” and then tweeting, “It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to.” A total review of the Republican presidential nominating process should be done, again. But this time GOP leaders should have one of their rules be that party elders must conclude that a party candidate is Republican. One veteran Washingtonian emailed us after Wednesday’s column to note the following: “I do wonder about the next GOP nominee and whether some like Kasich, Pence, et al may start early, even Ryan, in establishing their own party hierarchy. Short of someone like Mitch Daniels or even Boehner, I don’t know how the RNC in its current form survives. I really don’t. The rules and the primary process were changed after 2012 because the drawn out primary process was blamed for Mitt Romney’s slow start against Obama. What we got was more drawn out, more diluted and frankly a field of candidates that resembled a Vaudeville show. “It won’t be popular initially but we almost need a Party Boss in the truest sense of the word. I think there is a lot of truth to the notion that the Cold War united the Defense/Business Republican faction with the Social/Morality faction. Trump has done a service to the party, whether we acknowledge it, in raising alarm over Political Correctness and the forgotten blue collar Republican struggling with the income and new economy disparities. Someone that can harness that with a sense of statesmanship and sanity will or should be the next leader of the GOP.”
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NOTE: This column is copyrighted material; therefore reproduction or retransmission is prohibited under U.S. copyright laws. | |
