Does Trump's popularity demonstrate that a rational candidate from the right is no longer electable?

That is a good point, @stanleybmanly . It is as though they have thrashed so much now that the pond is so horribly muddied, not one fish stands out unless it leaps about acting very ‘unfish-like’.

Not at all. It is simply that the Republican party is splintering right now.

So a rational candidate might yet receive the nomination?

Are there rational candidates on the right, as the right exists today?

I think that the right of 2016 is so far over from the right of 1990, that it would not even be recognized.

The baby boomers that ‘just said no’ in the age of drugs, sex and rock & roll are Teapartyers. They are dying off as we speak.
The conservative kids that are gaining the vote were raised on the unpopular buffoonery of W. Bush and the Just Say No Republican congress of Obama.

The current Congress is so clueless that they don’t get that “We won’t even give an Obama justice a hearing” spawned Donald Trump.

Democrats are in no better shape, re-running McGovern against a guy that they kids love because his message has gone no-where for 40 years.

Trump is Albert Einstein’s candidate: “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
He’s the only thing different on the horizon.

Bloomberg!

It would seem that way.
My problem is the right have gone to just stop ,stall, so no no everything the democrats try ,they have lost sight of the average citizen, and lately it seems that they don’t seem to even care about it.

No. There have been plenty of irrational candidates before him. I don’t know why we would think he is the one to put the last nail in the coffin.

Am I out of line to say that Kasich is the only sane one of the bunch?

Tonight’s debate was crazy. This is probably the worst I have ever felt about the United States.

Ted Cruz – Bad Lip Reading

Trump’s popularity reflects a desperation to win at all costs, through insanity or just plain gamesmanship, like a football game.

@JLeslie The difference is that in the past by this stage of the game, the veneer of viability had been rubbed from the suspicious nails. This particular nail advertises and blusters its defects for all to witness, and only increases his lead in the process. It’s a marvelous show and fascinating to watch. It reminds of those stories about people on the beach staring transfixed at an incoming tidal wave as it climbs ever skyward. The spectacle is so riveting you neglect your own doom.

@stanleybmanly Don’t you see that Trump is different than the other Republicans that have driven liberals crazy?

Related to the Q but not quite on point: I saw a small clip on TV today where the gentleman speaking said Evangelicals are beginning to give up on the topics of gay marriage and prayer in public places and have come to a point where they just want to be left alone and able to practice their religion as they want (when I heard this I thought to myself can this really be true?) and so the family values, we’ll stop gays from getting in the military, we will shut down Planned Parenthood, doesn’t work as well anymore on a segment of the Republicans.

I think Trump sounds very rational to a lot of people. The words he chooses and how he says it could be better, but he sounds like he isn’t going to bother with BS that shouldn’t be part of politics and focus on important matters. Important to the people backing him anyway. The people who I know who support Trump aren’t religious.

@Your point is valid, and I will credit Trump for not bashing gays, but then there are all of those troublesome Muslims & Mexicans. Talk IS cheap. But I personally believe that a President whose mouth runs laps ahead of his mind can do us more mischief than any benefits to be derived derived from frankness.