Good article. One thing that I find particularly disturbing about this situation is that self-proclaimed “conservatives,” at least on this site, always seem to find a candidate on whom they build a cult of personality that has nothing to do with the candidate’s positions on the issues or even his history and background. This is particularly true in the case of Perot and Trump, but virtually every election has us seeing supposed conservatives running screaming after some new messiah who has emerged from obscurity under obscure conditions and who has absolutely no qualifications for the job. A bit of populist rabble-rousing is all it takes to be considered the GOP messiah, apparently.
The candidate always crashes and burns or goes third party, but the damage that has been done is significant, because huge amounts of time, money and press attention have been sucked away from the genuinely solid, experienced conservative candidates. In this case, I would say they are Cruz, Walker, Jindal and even Fiorina, who is articulating some very good positions and not afraid to attack Hillary directly; but you’d never know they even existed, because the press is having a field day with every lunatic utterance to come out of the Combover’s spittle-flecked mouth.
Yup. For noting Fred Thompson’s support of some very progressive stances like the National Popular vote I was “outed” as a democrat troll. For noting the seriously flawed things about Newt Gingrich its the same.
With Trump I would hardly know where to begin so I’ll just say I don’t believe that any man changes his ideology that fast that late in life.
All I know is that conservatives are never going to win until they adopt an ideology that isn’t totally dependent on their chosen candidate of the moment.
We are still nearly half a year away from the voting. No need to beat each other up for the "choice" we have today, as it is totally meaningless until the caucuses and primaries. Many of these candidates (including Trump) may not even be still in the race when the voting starts.
This happens every election cycle. Just four years ago, this place was a Sarah Palin cult. Then when she decided not to run it turned into a Herman Cain cult. Then after Herman was run out of the race, Newt Gingrich was the second coming for a month or so.
For now, Donald Trump is doing a good thing. 24 million Americans tuned into a meaningless GOP debate in the middle of summer largely because of Trump. Many of those people were independents and Democrats and got to see conservatives like Ted Cruz and Ben Carson for the first time. This is a good thing! Let it ride and see where it goes.