Thread: The Party of Bush Yields, Warily, to a New Face: Donald Trump

The Party of Bush Yields, Warily, to a New Face: Donald Trump

By MICHAEL BARBARO and ASHLEY PARKERFEB. 20, 2016

In his emotional seven-minute farewell to a Republican Party that elevated his father and brother to the White House, there were two words that a choked-up Jeb Bush could not bring himself to utter: “Donald Trump.”

Mr. Bush, the former governor of Florida, had been soundly rejected by an electorate he no longer recognized, hobbling his campaign and leaving him little choice but to withdraw from the presidential race.

“The people of Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina have spoken,” Mr. Bush said, holding back tears. “And I really respect their decision.”

It was a stunning turn for the man who a year ago embodied all the qualities that his party’s elders imagined Republican voters wanted in a president: civility, experience, pedigree and tolerance.

They were wrong.

The party of Prescott Bush, George Bush and George W. Bush is, for the moment, the party of Donald J. Trump.

For the past year, party leaders who had pleaded with Mr. Bush to run and armed his campaign with a record-shattering war chest of $100 million had consoled themselves with assurances that Mr. Trump’s popularity in the polls would never translate into victory at the ballot box.

Mr. Trump, it turned out, knew their voters better than they did.

Mr. Trump’s commanding back-to-back primary wins in two disparate regions of the country have forcefully shaken the Republican firmament out of a prolonged state of self-denial.

“It’s an enormous moment,” said Steve Schmidt, a top Republican strategist on John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008 and George W Bush’s in 2004. Unless further rivals immediately quit the race, “it’s very difficult to see how he is stopped on his way to the nomination.”

With Mr. Bush’s exit, mainstream Republicans did not just lose a beloved would-be standard-bearer. They are now bereft of the single most forceful and outspoken detractor of Mr. Trump in the presidential campaign. In debate after debate, and rally after rally, Mr. Bush questioned Mr. Trump’s tactics, his qualifications, his judgment, his worldview and his very decency.

On his way out of the campaign, Mr. Bush — in a line that seemed squarely directed at Mr. Trump’s divisive brand of politics — declared that a president must tend for all corners of the country and all kinds of people.

“I have put forth a vision for America that includes all,” Mr. Bush said, “because our country deserves a president for everyone.”

Now, with Mr. Bush’s exit, the Republican establishment confronts an urgent decision: Either destroy Mr. Trump or embrace him.

There are plenty of vulnerabilities to exploit if his opponents can summon the will and the muscle.

Even as he won in South Carolina, Mr. Trump seemed to overstay his welcome, revealing a tendency to test voters’ patience. In South Carolina, late-deciding voters made up 45 percent of the Republican electorate, and they uniformly scorned Mr. Trump. And surveys suggest that even some Republicans find him unlikable and lacking in compassion.

What’s more, so much of Mr. Trump’s campaign and his conduct remain startlingly unpredictable, from his spats with the pope to his shifting memories of his previous positions on momentous issues, such as his opposition (then later support, then opposition again) for the American-led invasion of Iraq.

And Mr. Trump will soon lose a feature of the 2016 race that has disproportionately benefited his candidacy: a large and unwieldy field of rivals that carved up much of the Republican electorate into small slivers.

In the coming weeks, rivals beyond Mr. Bush are expected to quit the race, winnowing the contest down to three or four figures who will finally have a megaphone that begins to rival his own.

Yet Mr. Trump keeps winning. Within the past 12 days, he has captured the hearts of moderates in New Hampshire and born-again Christians in South Carolina. In both states, he won decisively among both men and women, independents, voters without college degrees and those age 45 and over.

In South Carolina, he prevailed even after a brutal and deflating week, in which he was loudly and repeatedly booed on stage during a Republican debate; was denounced by the global head of the Catholic Church; praised Saddam Hussein as an effective fighter of terrorism; and declared that torture “works.”

Disconsolate Republican operatives spent much of Saturday night in dismay, over the death of the Bush dynasty and the success of Mr. Trump. Even in the face of polling that documented Mr. Trump’s appeal, and even after his win in New Hampshire, they privately doubted that he could sustain his momentum.

“It’s bad for the party and bad for the country,” said Stuart Stevens, the chief strategist for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign four years ago. “I don’t think there is anything good about it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/us...rump.html?_r=0

Disconsolate Republican operatives spent much of Saturday night in dismay, over the death of the Bush dynasty and the success of Mr. Trump. Even in the face of polling that documented Mr. Trump’s appeal, and even after his win in New Hampshire, they privately doubted that he could sustain his momentum.

“It’s bad for the party and bad for the country,” said Stuart Stevens, the chief strategist for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign four years ago. “I don’t think there is anything good about it.”

That's because you're a washed up idiot out of touch with the American People and everything we want and care about.