Usually, the presidential nominee is considered the leader of the entire party. We’ve made that person almost like a god. He has made the rules, decided the issues, directed the writing of the platform, and everyone below him rides his coattails and popularity. That’s usually.
This year, we have at least two centers of power and philosophy in both parties. It is most unusual in the Republican Party, since the nominee has been determined. Yet, Paul Ryan has been writing his own “platform” for congressional candidates to run on—full of traditional GOP conservatism.
Donald Trump says he was “blindsided” by Ryan’s hesitance to support him.
“Yeah, I was blindsided a little bit, because he spoke to me three weeks ago, and it was a very nice call, a very encouraging call,” Trump told NBC News’ Chuck Todd in an interview set to air Sunday on “Meet the Press.” “He called me, I think, to congratulate me about New York, ’cause I won by massive numbers.”
. . . In perhaps a preview of the message he intends to deliver to Ryan, Trump told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos Friday that he doesn’t need to earn Ryan’s support.
“I’m gonna say, ‘Look, this is what the people want,'” Trump told Stephanopoulos.
Trump has said he’ll talk to Ryan, and see if they can come to an understanding. Understanding is not a strong suit for Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin said Sunday she will work to unseat House Speaker Paul Ryan after Ryan refused last week to endorse Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. . .
She suggested that Ryan would be “Cantor-ed,” referencing ex-Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s June 2014 Virginia primary loss to an upstart challenger and his ousting from GOP leadership.
In response to Ryan, Trump was philosophical, saying he may not support Ryan’s agenda, either.
That’s important because Trump has brought more people into the party precisely by running on issues that are not traditional Republican talking points. For instance, on Sunday, he proposed a very un-GOP idea: increasing taxes on the rich.
Presumptive US Republican nominee Donald Trump has said taxes for rich people may have to go up in an apparent reversal of his stated policy. . .
He also apparently reversed his position on the minimum wage, telling the programme: “I’m allowed to change.”
. . . he told ABC his “optimum plan” would be negotiated with Democrats, but not be approved as such.
By the time the general election campaign begins, it looks as if Hillary Clinton will have no issues left to run on. But that ignores trouble on the right.
There’s an entirely separate power center developing. Weekly Standard editor William Kristol has been working to find a third-party conservative candidate. But he is not going far right. He has talked to Bush41 and Bush43, both of whom have declined to support Trump. Then, over the weekend, he met with Mitt Romney, apparently to see if he would run third party.
As the #NeverTrump forces continue to cast about for ways to knock Donald Trump from his frontrunner status in the race for the White House, the editor of the Weekly Standard magazine has admitted to meeting in D.C. with Mitt Romney in order to convince him to run a third party campaign against Trump. . .
“He came pretty close to being elected president, so I thought he may consider doing it, especially since he has been very forthright in explaining why Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton should not be president of the United States,” Kristol told the Washington Post…
“I’m certainly going to be hoping that we find someone who I have my confidence in who becomes nominee. I don’t intend on supporting either of the major party candidates at this point,” Romney said.
Trump is not seen as the “leader of the party” yet.
Fewer than four-in-10 GOP insiders said they would vote for Trump in the general election, while a quarter said they would not. The remaining 35 percent said they weren’t sure.
Some are just looking ahead to 2020, planning to put together a better battle, thinking Trump will lose—looking for a nominee they can get behind early—the way Republican campaigns usually go.
Less than 24 hours after Donald Trump cleared the Republican field and became the presumptive nominee, anti-Trump Republicans have started looking past the 2016 election entirely.
Initial chatter has centered around two names, the two who finished Place and Show behind Trump: Cruz and Marco Rubio. . .
For his part, Trump says he doesn’t need unity. He’ll win without it, so the losers will have to wait until 2024.
I don’t think it’s imperative that the entire party come together. I don’t want everybody. I don’t even want certain people that were extraordinarily nasty. Let them go their own way. Let them wait eight years or let them wait 16 years or whatever, because I think we’re going to have a great success. . .
Trump has said he’s “flexible,” and we can expect him to change his pitch. We have seen co-opt their agenda, the way Bill Clinton adopted Republican policies to build his popularity. And we have seen Trump eviscerate his opponents. One by one. Lethally.
And Trump knows how to use power. It may not answer the question of whose party it is, but it’s clear whose convention it is.
Donald J. Trump said he would not rule out an effort to remove Representative Paul D. Ryan as chairman of the Republican National Convention if he did not endorse Mr. Trump’s candidacy.
Mr. Trump stopped short of calling for Mr. Ryan, the speaker of the House, to step down from his convention role. But in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Trump said there could be consequences in the event that Mr. Ryan continued withholding his support.
“I will give you a very solid answer, if that happens, about one minute after that happens, O.K.?” Mr. Trump said. “There’s no reason to give it right now, but I’ll be very quick with the answer.”
Americans love quick, decisive action.
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