Kate Smith is on sabbatical.
I have a hunch that Trump supporters won’t compromise with the compromise candidate. Trump supporters want the establishment GOP out of power, not Ryan or Rubio, or any other Romney/Bush clone. A so-called compromise candidate keeps the GOPe in power. The only way I can imagine the GOPe can keep the Trump vote, with their “compromise” candidate is if they offer Trump the VP slot, and it is hard to imagine Trump agreeing to it, although I suppose he might hold his nose and do it, rather than let Hillary win.
But fact is, with any candidate but Trump, it is not really a compromise because the establishment wins, and this movement that has coalesced around Trump is about ridding ourselves of the globalists, the crony capitalists, the lobbyists, the corrupt Democrat-lights.
Much has changed since 1880. One is that the People will not tolerate the party insiders (Stalwarts in 1880, GOPe in 2016) thwarting the voters. If the GOPe thinks it can spring a James A. Garfield on us, it is nuts.
Garfield's rise was similar to Polk's in 1844. It couldn't happen today. Certainly not with Paul Ryan. A presidential candidate has to have some kind of personal appeal or pull. He or she can't simply be somebody pushed by the party machine into the race in the middle of it.
I have a hard time remembering 1880.
Now, 1814 I remember quite well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSTKE85yXl4
Within five years, Grant would be dead of throat cancer. Essentially penniless, Grant worked furiously at writing his memoirs, a masterpiece whose sales allowed his widow and family to live in comfort. He died days after finishing them.
Blaine was the 1884 nominee, only to lose to Grover Cleveland.
Blaine, Blaine, James E. Blaine; the continental liar from the State of Maine!
The only way this scenario could conceivably work would be to find a candidate that was simultaneously acceptable to all factions. Garfield, improbably fit the bill, respected and acceptable to all. A compromise in the best sense of the word.
Ryan is tied to the Establishment, and is Romney’s former running mate. He is closer to Blaine than Garfield. (Full disclosure, I went to college with Ryan, didn’t know him, but our Venn diagrams overlapped considerably)
As a thought exercise, can anyone think of a different Republican that Trump, Cruz, and establishment types could all actually rally around? I can’t.
The battle between GOP factions didn’t end in 1880.
In 1884, a number of mostly wealthy northeastern liberal Republicans (known as ‘Mugwumps’) abandoned the GOP for the Democrats. Progressive Teddy Roosevelt did not join them as might have been expected, and later emerged as the Republican leader.