Charles Cook: Republicans Have Only Themselves to Blame for Trump

Last edited Sat Jul 9, 2016, 04:50 AM - Edit history (1)

Rather than set­tling a linger­ing ques­tion hanging over this pres­id­en­tial race, FBI Dir­ect­or James Comey’s re­com­mend­a­tion not to pro­sec­ute Hil­lary Clin­ton, and sub­sequent word from At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Lor­etta Lynch that the Justice De­part­ment was clos­ing the in­vest­ig­a­tion, have con­versely am­ped up anti-Clin­ton feel­ings among con­ser­vat­ives, Re­pub­lic­ans, and oth­er crit­ics of the pre­sumptive Demo­crat­ic nom­in­ee.

My re­ac­tion is not ter­ribly sym­path­et­ic. If Hil­lary Clin­ton is such a hor­rible per­son, so ill-suited for the pres­id­ency, why didn’t they unite be­hind some­body, any­body, while there was still time to beat her? After Don­ald Trump lost the April 5 Wis­con­sin primary to Ted Cruz, the door was open. But when Trump swept the Acela primar­ies on April 26, win­ning not only Con­necti­c­ut, Delaware, Mary­land, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Is­land, but every county with­in each state, the race was over. The door had slammed shut.

The truth is that Re­pub­lic­ans were not in a mood to nom­in­ate Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, Marco Ru­bio, or any oth­er es­tab­lish­ment-ori­ented can­did­ate. They also des­pised Ted Cruz so he would nev­er do. None of the oth­er al­tern­at­ives meas­ured up. They were so angry with the gov­ern­ment that they wanted to fire a shot­gun blast at Wash­ing­ton. They ended up shoot­ing them­selves in the foot. They got Don­ald Trump and a gimpy party.

In oth­er words, Re­pub­lic­ans thought send­ing a mes­sage was more im­port­ant than beat­ing Hil­lary Clin­ton and tak­ing back the White House. So I guess Clin­ton and the White House wer­en’t im­port­ant enough for them to dial back their lofty prin­ciples. The per­fect was in­deed the en­emy of the good.


https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/638654?unlock=U2NZRDVVC8AMKTZW