By running an “Establishment”-backed campaign explicitly competing for GOP voters, you’re playing into the very pathologies that brought us to this point. At best you’re setting up a self-fulfilling dolchstosslegende that will haunt whatever is left of the GOP. I’d submit that the best way to wrest control of the party back from the Trump asylum is to allow him to fail miserably without the cover of a sabotage narrative. But perhaps you believe the schism is too advanced or otherwise inevitable. Maybe the rise of the populist-nationalist strain has made it impossible to put the humpty dumpty Republican coalition together again. Running Mitt is the equivalent of spinning off a new conference- the New Big East of US politics. The problem there is that Trumpists keep the brand and the BCS bid while the movement risks becoming a mid-major. I’m not there yet, but this is plausible if legitimately think a new vehicle is required.