Republican Presidential candidates have been dropping like flies. From the initial 17 in 2015 to the 7 remaining, one-by-one each folds up his/her tent and slinks off into the night. Carly and Christie brought the dropout count to 10 last night. So one might wonder who will be next. But a brief discussion with my son the political scientist tonight brought me to the realization that we are stuck with the remaining 7 for the next 34 days. Here’s my son’s reasoning.
Jim Gilmore: Gilmore is having the time of his life. His rise has been meteoric. He has gone from 17th place to 7th place in only 5 months. His vote count (that’s total human votes, not delegates) has soared from 12 in Iowa to 133 in NH - that’s more than an order of magnitude increase in just 8 days. If you scale that up to the full 50 states, he will have more votes by June than there are atoms in the universe. No way he drops out – why would he?
Ben Carson: Carson has a website and a book deal and a Jovian ego. He does not believe he could be President, and never has – only that he can sell a lot of self-help product by self-promotion. Grain in the pyramids? Better intel on Syria than the CIA? Why not, it’s great PR. They will have to drag him kicking and screaming from the podium. After they wake him up.
Donald Trump: smiles / facepalms.
Ted Cruz: ditto.
John Kasich: Kasich is an establishment Republican candidate who has found a winning strategy – stop mentioning The Donald. Back when he was pointing out the brain rot that characterized Trump’s pronouncements and Trump’s followers, he was dropping in the polls like a rock. Because Trump was decapitating him with his record in Ohio. And of course attacking Trump and his supporters is a fool’s errand (Ask JEB! about that). But now that Kasich has shut up about The Donald, no one notices him anymore (if you don’t believe that, watch his hilarious entrance at the last debate — they actually started while he was waiting in the wings). And his reasoned, fairly sane conservative positions have quietly won him a few supporters from what passes as the smart ones on the right. Enough to place him second in NH. Kasich is now playing for Ohio on March 15. Doesn’t really matter what happens in the 30 primaries and caucuses before that. Because Kasich believes he is beloved in Ohio and can win Ohio, and it’s a large, winner-take-all state. So even if he wins nothing else, he can be a player at the convention. OTOH, lose OH, gone.
Marco Rubio and John E Bush: The Florida primary is also March 15, another large, winner-take-all state. These 2 native sons are establishment heavyweights battering each other with brutal blows, waiting til the other drops, ready to assume the establishment mantle when the lunatic wing self-destructs. Both have powerful backers, name recognition, enough money and momentum to keep on swinging. On March 15, one will stumble and fall in his home state. The other will continue as the establishment candidate, or so they believe.
So, like it or not, my son predicts no more R dropouts until the ides of March. Great news for the Redenbachers. Pull up a chair.