Donald Trump or Ben Carson won’t win the nomination -- or I’ll eat crow

These re­spond­ents seem to be voicing sup­port for the polit­ic­al new­comers as a way to ex­press their dis­af­fec­tion with Re­pub­lic­an lead­ers, past and present, for al­low­ing policies that con­ser­vat­ives des­pise—Obama­care, the bank bail­out, en­vir­on­ment­al reg­u­la­tions—to re­main in ef­fect, des­pite the party’s ma­jor­it­ies in both cham­bers of Con­gress. The real­ity is that the con­gres­sion­al lead­ers over­prom­ised, by pledging to do things that an op­pos­i­tion party can’t achieve without a veto- or fili­buster-proof Con­gress. The party’s base sees this is a be­tray­al—a con­scious de­cision by party lead­ers not to do what they’d prom­ised.

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It’s my be­lief that these mad-as-hell con­ser­vat­ives and pop­u­lists will even­tu­ally mi­grate to a more plaus­ible al­tern­at­ive, very likely Sen. Ted Cruz, while the con­ven­tion­al Re­pub­lic­ans who aren’t so ali­en­ated will co­alesce be­hind a more tra­di­tion­al can­did­ate. The con­ven­tion­al wis­dom, which I share, is that this will most likely wind up be­ing Sen. Marco Ru­bio, al­though es­tab­lish­ment-ori­ented Re­pub­lic­ans still have a candle lit for former Flor­ida Gov. Jeb Bush or Ohio Gov. John Kasich. The in­triguing event this past week­end was the de­cision by the Uni­on Lead­er, the dom­in­ant New Hamp­shire news­pa­per, to en­dorse New Jer­sey Gov. Chris Christie. The bel­li­cose former U.S. at­tor­ney seems to have gained trac­tion since the Par­is ter­ror­ist at­tacks; per­haps the door has been cracked open for him.

If Re­pub­lic­ans gath­er at their mid-Ju­ly con­ven­tion in Clev­e­land and end up nom­in­at­ing either Trump or Car­son, I will dine on crow, most likely deep-fried, but I don’t ex­pect to be reach­ing for the Pep­to-Bis­mol.

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