If it comes to it, there is also a Track Two, and serious people are preparing for that as well, as they should. That preparation involves finding a respectable and respected figure who might run as an Independent Republican and helping him or her get on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Such a candidate would follow in the footsteps of Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut in 2006 and Lisa Murkowski in Alaska in 2010, both of whom ran as independents, won, and then rejoined the parties from which they had spent a few months apart.

We believe there are persuasive answers to the arguments against such an independent effort. Those arguments range from earnest concern that such an effort would simply be futile (it would be difficult but not impossible), to worry that it would simply help Hillary Clinton (what would most help Hillary Clinton is Donald Trump as the GOP nominee), to the suggestion that it would hurt the Republican party (to the contrary, it would help both down-ballot in this election and for the future).

But we are not at this juncture yet. With 40 percent of the delegates yet to be selected, there is time to save the Republican party from within. Only if that effort fails would extraordinary measures be required.