It seems obvious to me beyond the need for discussion that the candidate who gets the most votes from the members of a given party should get the nomination. Otherwise, why bother to go through the exercise, and pretend that votes matter? And if votes don’t matter, then how can the Republican Party claim to represent its members? The only conceivable answer would be if senior leadership put ITSELF up for election–when Senators were nominated at a State level, the governors, or State legislature, whichever it was, were still subject to voter approval–and I think they know quite well how that would go. Their asses would have been fired already if the rank and file got a say. I and no doubt many other people swear at them every time they call me for money. I gave my money. Now I want my fucking results. You don’t keep funding failure. You don’t buy a product that doesn’t work more than once. I would ask for my money back if I could.
If they want to keep a Party which more than a fraction of current members are willing to support in any way shape or form, they better make Trump the nominee. If they don’t, they can expect donations to slump more than they already have, and the number of I’s to swell to massive proportions. Put another way, if they “win” in putting someone other than Trump on the ticket, they will lose badly.
Trump may not be what I hope he could be. I have often admitted that, and will again. But he drove the issues in this election cycle. He has said things nobody else has been willing to say. He ALONE has put immigration on the front burner. All of these things point to at least the possibility that he may do something useful, something off-script, something which does not continue to point the direction of our great experiment in the direction of decline and failure.