Alex Isenstadt at POLITICO gives us a snapshot of the freakout among the Republican Party establishment over Donald Trump’s strength:
Establishment Republicans are reckoning with something they thought would never happen: That it might soon be too late to stop Donald Trump.
With the controversial businessman the clear front-runner heading into Nevada and next week’s Super Tuesday contests, there’s an emerging consensus that the odds of dislodging him are growing longer by the day. Whispered fears that Trump could become the Republican nominee have given way to a din of resigned conventional wisdom – with top party officials and strategists openly wondering what the path to defeating him will be. [...]
While the field has winnowed somewhat in recent days, the compressed nature of this year’s Republican primary calendar means there is precious little time for the anti-Trump field to consolidate. Should Trump notch his third consecutive win on Tuesday, some foresee him steamrolling through Super Tuesday a week later, when a quarter of the party’s delegates are awarded. A batch of newly released polls show him with sizable leads in several of those states, including Massachusetts and Georgia.
The Nation’s John Nichols cautions that Trump’s appeal in a general election may sway some Democratic votes:
Service Employees International Union president Mary Kay Henry warns that Trump could win a good many union votes—and perhaps the presidency—if he secures the Republican nod. “I think this is a very dangerous political moment in our country,” said the head of the SEIU, which has endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, during a January discussion of Trump’s appeal. “I think he’s touching this vein of terrible anxiety that working-class people feel about their current status, but more importantly, how terrified they are for their kids not being able to do as well as they have, never mind doing better.” Henry noted that internal polls of union members across the country reveal a “broken sense of the future” and raise the prospect of an emotion-driven election in which it is “easier [to] appeal to fear than to what’s possible.” [...] “This is an unprecedented election in so many ways that we don’t know what electability is,” cautions Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, which has backed Clinton. “What we do know is that Trump is better positioned to pivot, to Etch-A-Sketch his message, than the other Republicans. That constitutes a threat.”
Jack Shafer at POLITICO, meanwhile, argues that Trump’s candidacy is much like a right-wing email forward:
Every family has at least one: That aunt, or brother-in-law, or second cousin who forwards chain emails, or posts social-media tidbits that advance spectacular but easily refuted claims. For instance, that widely distributed email containing “proof” of a United Nations program to confiscate our guns, or that tweet or Facebook positing about a forthcoming solar storm will result in 15 days of total darkness, or that “news” story about a Justin Bieber ringtone that saved a Russian man from a bear mauling, or the tweet announcing that Paul McCartney, Carlos Santana, Cher, Macaulay Culkin, or Jackie Chan have died.
On the long shot that no gullible relative is currently stuffing your timeline with flimflam, may I suggest you fill the void by following the Twitter account of New York billionaire and presidential candidate Donald J. Trump? Or at the very least, pay attention to what he says in speeches and interviews. [...]
What’s more horrific, the bottomless naiveté of Trump supporters, who seem predisposed to swallowing his bilge without asking questions of the bilge-spewer himself, who sees no harm in spreading dangerous pseudo-facts on the campaign trail. According to communication theory, hoax emails and hoax social media posting are often believed because they come from a known, trusted source. Trump is certainly known, isn’t he? What I can’t crack is why he’s trusted.
Importantly, Josh Vorhees at Slate analyzes polling data and points out flaws in the “consolidation” theory — the idea that as candidates drop out their votes will support the establishment candidate:
If you combine the primary votes received by the so-called “establishment lane” candidates—Rubio, Bush, John Kasich, and Chris Christie—this year, that Franken-candidate would have squeezed out a win in Iowa by 2 points over Cruz, coasted to victory in New Hampshire by nearly 10 points over Trump, and bested the field in South Carolina by more than 5 points. Even in a year defined by anti-establishment anger, there appear to be more than enough voters willing to pull the lever for an establishment-minded candidate to deny Trump or Cruz the Republican nomination.
There’s a major problem with the consolidation theory, though—and it’s not just that Kasich is still in the race. It’s that there’s no evidence that supporters will move en masse from one establishment candidate to another.
Over at The Wall Street Journal, Patrick O’Conner points out that as Republican elites try to stop Trump by flocking to Marco Rubio, they are actually undermining Rubio’s attempt to paint himself as a reformer:
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has spent months trying to convince Republican primary voters that he is a political outsider who has struggled to overcome entrenched interests inside his party.
That is going to be a much tougher case to make moving forward, thanks to all the current and former elected officials who have rallied behind the Florida senator in the days following the South Carolina primary.
At The Week, Paul Waldman looks ahead to what’s in store for Rubio as he challenges Trump:
[N]ow with the Republican race effectively narrowed to three candidates, the one Trump hasn't bothered to go after too often — Marco Rubio — must prepare for the mockery and rumor-mongering that will surely be coming his way from the frontrunner. Whether he can withstand it could go a long way toward determining how this race turns out.
Until now, Trump has been relatively soft on Rubio. But with the increasing possibility that Rubio could be the greatest threat to Trump winning the nomination, he's almost certain to go after him. If the past is any guide, Trump will throw a bunch of different attacks Rubio's way until he happens upon one that seems to resonate; then he'll stick with it as long as it works. Trump is already dabbling in Rubio birtherism (though he doesn't seem quite committed to it), but eventually he'll find a line of personal criticism with just the right note of cruelty and derision.
Rubio already seems spooked.
On a final note — and in the context of Rubio’s celebratory speeches after losing primary after primary — Alexandra Petri at The Washington Post imagines what other Rubio “victory” speeches would look like:
I’m proud of us. I’m proud of what we’ve built. Today we witnessed something incredible. This boat did the next best thing it could possibly have done other than float.
— Marco Rubio, addressing the Titanic
Today, we proved the doubters wrong.
— Marco Rubio, age 7, accepting a soccer participation trophy