If the Republican party wants Trump out, do they need to pay off Cruz or Rubio so one will drop out?

Nope. Both are too stubborn. And even if one did and it worked Trump would run as a Independent so nobody could win since he is a child.

^^With that reasoning doesn’t that mean Trump, Cruz, and Rubio are children?

@JLeslie They sure are acting like it.

^^ I mean seriously. Rubio is attacking Trump about having small hands and spray tans. Trump is attacking Rubio over drinking water and make-up.

It is a fucking joke.

Both want to repeal my healthcare but I have no idea what they would replace it with.

So fuck these losers.

It’s too late. What is done is done. Cruz and Rubio split the vote but even then the numbers that came out this morning show it probably would have been Trump anyway. I hope Hillary does not do too much damage in her 4 years.

I agree that it’s too late. Either Trump will self destruct (fingers crossed) or he will be the nominee.

I’m hoping that Bloomberg’s “March” time frame for announcing a an independent run means that he’ll move to block Trump if it comes to that.

I join @ARE_you_kidding_me in hoping Hillary’s damage is limited.

Pay off? How?

You don’t run for President unless you have an ego the size of San Francisco. And if you have that size ego, you’re not going to let yourself be ‘bought off’.

It’ll never happen, at least the way the questioner described it.

Rather, what is likely to happen is that Rubio will lose in Ohio on March 15, and bow out of the race. However, if he has a good show in Ohio, then we’re back to square one.

I’m actually hoping for Trump to be the Republican nominee now; the bigger he gets, the easier the time Hillary will have in the fall.

@ibstubro – I would go fro Bloomberg in a heartbeat, but it is awfully late for him to anything credible. I wish he would have jumped in two months ago.

I’m pulling for Trump. I think you love or hate him. So his 50% of 50% might be hard to move from. He has basically offended everyone that well (look at pictures from his rallies).

The SuperPac ads write themselves.

Edit :: And he has been such a dick to Rubio and Cruz it might be hard for their supporters to move over to Trump. Good job GOP.

I don’t think Bloomberg will enter the race.

Ha. If I were a Republican, I’d just shoot myself in the head. These guys are not only an embarrassment to the Party, but to all Americans. Is this the best we got? Did you see the Canadian debates? That’s how worthy opponents should act. That’s how you debate. Issues. This shit we’re seeing belongs on a pre-school playground.

Cruz is a narcissistic fundamentalist monomaniac. He is convinced he is anointed by God himself to lead the unworthy to the promised land and there is no way that he would ever drop out.
With Bush gone Rubio now sees himself as the heir designate and the Republican savior. While he will not just remove himself from the race on principle, he is not a fanatic like Cruz, just a politician and as such he could be bought off.

I think Rubio is too young to be bought off, @rojo. In politics it’s all about name recognition and he’s probably thinking that regardless the winner – Trump or Hillary – the country is going to be looking for a savior in 4 years.

I’ve thought Cruz a whack-job since the day I knew he existed. I agree that there’s no way he could be bought off, and that there’s little chance of his supporters moving to Trump.

I do not think of Cruz as a whack job. He is intelligent, cold, calculating, manipulative and a threat to my way of life in a psychopathic sort of way.

I think of him as the Ted Bundy of politics (they even look alike Ted B vis a vis Ted C )

I can’t bring myself to give enough of a shit to pay more than passing attention to the ridiculousness of any of the antics of the Republicans. I honestly believe their time is up come November and choose to focus on more positive things in the meantime.

The very premise of this question, If the Republican party wants Trump out… misses the one way the GOP can move Trump out: quit voting for him!

The Republican Party is not a few dozen people in Washington, it is the people that have been registered as Republican and are voting in the primaries and attending the caucuses.

The Republicans have had repeated and consistent candidates and activists for twenty years now, Trump is the logical extension of the Republican movement.

Those Republicans that don’t want to be affiliated with a party that will nominate Trump are free to organize a party of their own and nominate their own candidate.

@zenvelo I hope that we do. We have needed to clean house and move the party out of the crazy fringe for some time now. All of the right wing factions that have splintered off recently are more hard lined and moving in the wrong direction.
It’s about time we get centered again.

There is a rumor that if Trump is successful in his bid for the nomination the more establishment Republicans may run, or at least support a third party candidate such as Bloomberg. (looking for links now)
Would splitting the party and assuring a Democratic win be better for the Country than a Trump presidency? Is the Republican Leadership evolving altruistic tendencies? Hard to believe.

@rojo If by some off chance Bloomberg runs for President, a lot of Democrats will vote for him too. NYC voted him in 3 times.

I am not convinced that Cruz supporters would migrate to Rubio if Cruz dropped out. It seems to me that Cruz and Trump are going after many of the same anti-establishment voters.

Let us say that Cruz and Rubio remain in the race but that Trump remains on top and wins the primaries. And let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the party leaders decide to go against the wishes of the party members and make another candidate the nominee. Cruz is not their favorite, being held in the same disdain as Trump and knowing his heavy handed fundamentalism will keep many from voting for him, so they are going to be left with the choice of Rubio. Or they could go completely overboard, nominating someone, like Bloomberg, who has not even campaigned, although this would require buying off Rubio, perhaps with the vice presidency and a nod toward future election runs as the main presidential candidate..
Either way, neither Trump NOR Cruz will just go quietly into the night. They will both fight tooth and nail and I could easily see both of them launching third party campaigns to split the vote just out of spite.

I see interesting times ahead. What if Trump wins the primary and Hilary gets indicted? We’ll have two candidates nobody wants to win. If the indictment comes too late the Democrats won’t even have enough time to put someone else on the ballot. Maybe Obama could pardon Hilary before the election but I’m not sure that would be much help. Aren’t we lucky to live in interesting times?

@ibstubro “I think Rubio is too young to be bought off”

Well someone owns him. Not a word that comes out of his mouth is genuine or unrehearsed. I don’t think he’s ever uttered a thought on the political stage that wasn’t someone else’s.

@Jaxk we already have two candidates nobody wants to win

Well, that isn’t really accurate is it? Evidently there are a shit-pot full of irate, ill-informed voters who want them to win

We had like seven candidates nobody wants to win. Narrowed down to two at this point.

When you and enough others use the term “pay off”, then it becomes a near-certainty that the candidacies you speak of will never prematurely cease operations in order to give a current opponent a clearer shot at a win over one that they both despise. If it were ever presumed or assumed that a candidate had been “bought off” in some way (“for the good of the Party” or “for the good of the Nation” be damned) then that candidate would cease to be a viable member of any political body, including the Senate, where they now at least enjoy the rank and privilege that accrues to that office.

If the sordid term is not used, and the candidates’ honor is not thereby directly impugned, then of course “negotiations” of one kind or another (which may or may not include paying off the resigning candidate’s campaign debt, and/or vague promises of future appointments or support in later campaigns) could occur. When people get the idea that the candidate has “sold out” or been “bought off” (different terms for the same result), then the candidate’s honor would be directly attacked, and no one would trust him thereafter.

We’ve gotten what we have been aiming at for decades. The primary system is broken in the way that the candidates need to win the support of their own parties by appealing to and energizing the more radical members of each party. That’s what happens in primaries; I do not understand why, after all these years, that is still a mystery to so many. During primary season the candidates on the right move to the extreme right, and those on the left move to the extreme left: they have to win their own party’s selection processes.

After the candidates are nominated later this summer, then each will be appealing to the centrist voters who actually swing elections. And because of the way the Electoral College splits, and because certain States will be write-offs (or shoo-ins) for either Party’s candidate, the candidates will spend most of their time appealing to a few dozen voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, while paying lip service to the notion that they need to appeal “all Americans” and somehow unify the country. Nonsense!

When they appeal to those few dozen voters – and get them to actually vote, and hopefully prevent too many successful dirty tricks by the opposing side – then they can win the general election.

If they play nice they can be Vice President.

The Republicans best bet for the long term future of their party is to vote en masse for Hillary.

The media is speculating that Rubio may be asked to bow down and be Cruz vice, so that Rubio’s voters may go with Cruz and give Drumpf a run for his money.

I wholeheartedly agree with @Jaxk ; this election is interesting to say the least. And unlike many past elections, the “interesting” is not limited to one side or the other.

We’re all at least somewhat familiar with the GOP’s antics. Many thought that Trump’s popularity would wane and he’d drop out like other vanity candidates, but not only has that not happened, he’s actually beating the other candidates pretty soundly. I’m thinking Cruz just won’t drop out; no matter what. And from the numbers I’ve seen, while Cruz may have a better shot at the nomination than Rubio (well, a better shot at second-place), in a head-to-head against Clinton, Rubio shows stronger. The RNC isn’t exactly happy about the situation, but reap what you sow.

On the other side, if the e-mail thing doesn’t get Hillary indicted, the behavior of the DNC may drag her into legal proceedings even if she manages to avoid getting named as a defendant. They are still pushing for her even though polls show that Sanders could beat whoever the GOP puts up while Clinton only really has a chance against Trump. Even more interesting is things like the resignation of the DNC Vice-chair, Tulsi Gabbard, and that the other candidate that everyone though would just be a flash in the pan has had more staying power that those who thought that November would be a Jeb-vs-Hillary contest imagined.

At the end of the day, no matter what happens on the Democratic side, I don’t see anyone ousting Trump. He is what the GOP made people want, and I’m not entirely sure that having either Cruz or Rubio drop would stop that since both candidates have supporters who have Trump as a second choice; dropping out is no guarantee that whoever stays would get enough of a boost to win.

@flutherother I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Hillary is probably the most viable Republican candidate in the race.

@CWOTUS That may have been how it worked in the past, but 2016 is not 1986; it’s a bit more complicated nowadays. As 2012 proved, pretty much any Republican candidate that tries to go for the Centrist vote will lose their base while any attempt to shore up the base will lose swing-voters. Trump is popular for a reason, and that reason has nothing to do with being anywhere near Centrist. On the Democratic side, too many people on both sides and many in the middle dislike Hillary on general principle for her to have a chance of gaining the votes of people who aren’t already poised to vote for whoever will keep the GOP out of the Oval Office anyways.

@jerv – Not a bad analysis and I have to agree with most of what you say. The Republicans have gotten themselves into a hell of a fix. Even if Rubio and/or Cruz get enough votes to stop Trump from getting a majority, what do they do at the convention? Trump’s support comes from those that don’t believe the party is listening to them. If they nominate someone that has fewer votes than Trump that only proves the point. I don’t see a way out of this mess. Trump is a flawed candidate but so is Hilary. Every Candidate on the Republican side has vowed to support the nominee, whoever it is. I don’t see a way out of that one either. I suspect we’ll see some dramtic changes in the rules at the Republican convention but if they make changes designed to keep Trump off the ticket, there will be a revolt and Trump will likely run as a third party.

If Hilary gets indicted, I suspect Obama will pardon her before anything gets too far. He almost has to. That should raise a ton of issues for her but but it’s not clear to me that even that will hurt her too badly. I fear we’re stuck with a Hilary v Trump election with no good outcome. Even then I’m not sure Hilary has a lock even though she has the inside track.

@Jaxk I don’t see how Trump can run as a third party candidate, he promised not to, I saw it.

Here is a link about Republicans thinking about a third party option.

@rojo – would you take his word?

but he promised! What kind of politician would he be if he went back on a promise???????

Ohhhhhhhh!—Never mind——

My point with Rubio, @dappled_leaves, is that it’s all good for him at this point. He’s positioning for 2020, regardless the winner this year.
There’s a snowball’s chance in hell of Rubio throwing support to Cruz, and Trump doesn’t need it.
Being Cruz’s #2 is the kiss of death, IMO. More a threat than a promise.

Maybe if Rubio was promised Bloomberg’s #2…
lol

@Jaxk “Trump’s support comes from those that don’t believe the party is listening to them. If they nominate someone that has fewer votes than Trump that only proves the point.”

The same is largely true of Sanders, only a little more complicated by things like super-delegates vowing to go for Clinton regardless of the popular vote. And given that Hillary’s victories occurred in low-turnout states while the delegate counts are still competitive if you disregard the super-delegates that many media outlets assigned to Hillary when she first announced her candidacy, I can’t help but see the rift between the party and the voters causing trouble for both parties.

But I suspect that the real effect of this election cycle won’t be felt until at least the 2018 mid-term elections. With both parties pushing a candidate other than what a large number of their constituents want this time around, I’m thinking that the “interesting times” have barely begun. Sure, there have always been people who were skeptical about how whether the will of the people has any effect on government, but if 2016 proves that the people have no input, I can’t see that just blowing over.

If Hillary gets indicted, a pardon won’t prevent the damage to her electability. At best, it would disenfranchise enough people to lead to low voter turnout, which would most likely hand the presidency to the Republ…err… Trump.

why do I find myself actually hoping for a Hillary indictment? Oh yeah, ‘cause it will give Bernie the opportunity to be Prez. Hopefully he picks Ms. Warren for VP but that would be two east coasters so not much chance

@rojo I think Warren will wait until the primaries are over… if she announces she’ll be Sanders’ VP, then Sanders doesn’t get the candidacy, her declaration for Clinton will be weakened. But it’s a good bet that she’ll be the pick, whoever is the Democratic candidate.

@jerv – I don’t disagree but there are a couple of points that will have an impact. The Democrats have had the super delegates in their rules for some time now. So over riding the popular vote with super delegates is not as obvious as if the Republicans simply vote in some one else. Also Hilary’s base, much like Trumps, don’t seem to care if she is dishonest or self serving or anything else. They will support her no matter what. If it is Trump v Hilary we are in for a pretty nasty campaign. So nasty that maybe everyone will stay home. The vote will turn out 1 to 1 (Hilary will vote and Trump will vote). Then the presidency can be decided with a coin toss (that means Hilary wins, she has the two headed coin).

The Republicans are now openly talking about a “brokered” convention. As of 3/3/16 4:00 PM MT, Trump has 319 delegates, Cruz 226, Rubio 110, Kasich 25 and Carson 8. Once the convention starts, suppose Rubio, Kasich and Carson deliver their delegates to Cruz, then he will end up with 369 delegates, and become the nominee. I don’t know if it will play out exactly like that, but I have a suspicion you will see a brokered nomination at the convention, which may or may not reflect the results of the Republican primaries.

I still think that if that happens, Trump will go third party, further weakening the Republican vote. We’ll end up with a Democrat in the White House. My preference? Sanders, but Hillary would be very acceptable.

@Yetanotheruser – I have to agree, except…......uh…..well no exceptions.

@Jaxk You’re agreeing with me on something political?!? I hope my head doesn’t explode!

@Yetanotheruser – Yeah, I know. I tried my damnest to find some disagreement, I just couldn’t.

Personally, I would prefer Trump get the nod and the Republican establishment then put up a third party candidate. Just for the sake of interest.

All four candidates on stage tonight said they would support the eventual nominee and not go third party. Including Trump. If it’s on TV, it must be true.

@rojo That’s an interesting idea. Are they actually allowed to do it?

@dappled_leaves
Neocons threaten third party run
Bill Kristol threatens third party

@Yetanotheruser I’m a bit confused too, but I’ll take it.

@Jaxk I suspect that they’d actually kick it to the Supreme Court… and wind up with a 4–4 deadlock.

@Jaxk I hate that question. I think it’s a waste of time to ask candidates if they’ll support the nominee.

LOL @Jaxk. Yep. If they weren’t kidding, then it’s a Political Promise, and everyone knows that those are sacrosanct.

You’re making me glad that I didn’t give up on this thread as soon as I might have.