While leaving the station after my radio show Tuesday, the thought occurred to me that if Donald Trump is the nominee for the Republican Party and he loses the general election, it won't be his fault. It will be all the elitist, establishment Republicans who have dismissed and assaulted him since the beginning. It will be all the nasty commentary, the statements about how unelectable he is and it will have very little to do with the Democrats’ actions or Trump himself. It will be the result of collateral damage from a nasty primary election; he’ll have some guilt in the latter. The Democrat candidates are mostly and wisely sitting on the sidelines watching the Republicans destroy each other and their party.
Trump hinted this week that he may drop his pledge to support the Republican nominee if the assaults and lies don’t stop.
Then it occurred to me what may actually happen. We’re all neglecting the nightmare scenario. It’s literally possible that through a brokered convention or a further Republican meltdown of assaults against Trump that we end up with four viable candidates for President in November’s general election.
In this scenario, I believe Marco Rubio becomes the nominee for the Republican Party. There are some states Ted Cruz just won’t win. Absent Trump, these go to Rubio. It appears certain that Hillary Clinton, unless she goes to jail where she belongs, will be the Democrat nominee for President. Scathing from the assaults and tear-downs of the establishment Republicans, Donald Trump then runs as an independent.
Where does the fourth candidate come into play? Seeing a massive opportunity and real chance for victory, enter former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Who wins in this dumpster fire? It will likely be a candidate with less than one-third of the vote.
Given how this election is going, we could probably predict the outcome just as accurately with Hillary Clinton's Iowa Caucus coin-flip. In other words, at this point, none of them win, including the one with the most votes.
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Absent jail, Hillary likely gets the most votes. But, with no majority, Hillary has to go to the House. Don’t get excited. Not the ‘big house,” The House.
If no candidate receives the majority of votes, a ‘contingent election’ is held. The election of the President goes to the House of Representatives. Each state delegation casts one vote for one of the top three general-election finalists to determine a winner.
This happened in the election of 1824 between Henry Clay, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Andrew Jackson, known for his victory at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, John Calhoun, the Secretary of War and John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State. John Quincy Adams won the election after the contingent election by the House of Representatives. It was the first presidential election in which the candidate who received the most electoral votes, did not become President. Andrew Jackson had the most.
The single national party in power at that time had been the Democratic-Republican Party. The party effectively fell apart that election season and split four ways because they couldn’t agree on a candidate. John Quincy Adams’ followers later became the Republican Party and Andrew Jackson’s followers manifested into the Democrat Party.
Based on the political map,a vote in The House likely favors Rubio. The establishment-Republicans are so hungry for the status-quo (the same group who have been damaging this country) that they’ll risk a complete political meltdown rather than to have an outsider like Trump become their nominee.
Like I said in the beginning, even in this outlier of a scenario, the real tragedy in the Republican Party is that so many are throwing the baby out with the bathwater in attacking Donald Trump so viciously. But, to question such actions, would be to falsely assume they care about the party or its cause. They don’t. They care about maintaining the comfortable position of power they have attained, and they expect you to comply or they’ll “burn down the house.” “The house” is both the party and the cause, in favor of their power. If you corner and threaten a vicious dog, he is likely to bite.
The Trump-voters clearly don’t care either. They, too, are wiling to “burn down the house” if Trump isn’t the nominee.
If this destructive behavior continues, there will be a massive shakeup in Washington, of the likes, never seen before. But, isn’t that the ultimate goal of everyone but the parties’ establishment anyway?
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