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Friday, August 7, 2015

Trump's Rump Party

"It's Cool, I'm With That Guy."
By John W. Patty
Note: I'm not pulling the term "Rump" out of thin air: "rump party" is the term for what's left behind after a party experiences a major splintering.

Well, the Clash in Cleveland is over, the results are in, and the post-mortems...have...begun.  What to make of it?  There were stylistic differences, of course, and in a few cases expectations were violated (Rubio, better; Bush, worse) or confirmed (Paul, panicked; Carson, quiet).  But the real deal, ahem, the Art of the Deal, was Donald Trump.

I won't pretend to analyze what Trump said, or even how it played...beyond one simple point.  Trump's predictably well-noticed refusal to rule out a run as an independent if he doesn't win the GOP nomination was completely predictable ... AND ABSOLUTE GENIUS. The genius is reified in his seeming throw-away quip,
 "...if I am the nominee, I will pledge that I will not run as an Independent..."
I have no idea if he was trying to be funny, but it's really awesome to see someone so brazenly make it about himself/herself.  I mean, running for president is easily in the top 5 or so indicators of one's self-involvement...but part of "the game" of doing so is at least pretending that it's not about oneself.   One is supposed to talk about how hard it is to sign up for this job: the sacrifice, the toll on one's family, the psychological and emotional drain one endures as the leader of the free world, yadda yadda.  Not Trump: he publicly wants to win it, sure, as a Republican, why not?  But he wants to win it.  Doubt that?  YOU'RE FIRED.

Will Trump follow through on this?  I mean, will he (actively) run through the convention, regardless of how the GOP primaries treat him?  I don't know.  But what I do know is this: the GOP establishment needs to start thinking about the Trump Rump: estimate what/who will remain if Trump does mount (or starts to appear as if he might actually need/be willing to mount) an independent campaign, and how to organize those remnants into a credible campaign behind whomever wins the GOP nomination.

Because only one person can win the presidency, this dilemma for the GOP indirectly introduces the interesting aspect of timing for Trump.  That is, how will (or should) Trump make his decision(s) about standing with or splitting off from the GOP?  Sure, Trump is leading by "a lot" right now, but not by nearly enough to treat the nomination as a sure-thing.  So there are three scenarios, two of which are interesting.

Scenario 1: Trump Shoots the Moon.  The first, and least interesting, is that Trump continues to pull away for the next 6 months and eventually dons the mantle of nominee-apparent.  That raises a very interesting general election (and interesting questions for the Democrats), but otherwise falls into the "normal category" for the GOP primary electorate: fall behind the winner once one has emerged, and conserve the energy/unity for the general elections.

Scenario 2: Trump Loses The Lead. The second scenario involves Trump's leader status coming into serious question only after a clear "second alternative" has emerged.  To make this concrete, suppose that all but one of the other 16 leading candidates eventually announce that they are stepping aside, leaving only one candidate running against Trump for the nomination.  Suppose also that this candidate has a strong base of support similar to Trump's.

What should Trump do?  Trump can either (1) battle the establishment in a costly primary or (2) announce that he's running as an independent, saving his efforts to reach across the aisle and start running his general election campaign.  Money's not an issue for him (so he says), so he doesn't need the nomination in any direct fashion. (Getting on the ballot is an issue, but I'll assume he can spend enough to make that happen in the relevant states).  So why fight for it?

Well, the difficulty of running as an independent at this point is that Trump has "allowed" the GOP to coalesce behind a common candidate---and this coalescence within the GOP might have been aided by the unifying threat presented by Trump's very pursuit of the GOP nomination.  That is, if he had left before the party coalesced behind a common "second candidate," then the fight for the GOP nomination might have been more protracted, less focused on Trump, and cost his eventual general election candidate "from the right" more money and energy.

Given that the conservative end of the spectrum is where he would presumably draw from for his votes in the general, this line of argument suggests that Trump might benefit from leaving the GOP nomination race before the "establishment" circles their wagons. But...

Scenario 3: Trump Faces A Tough Distribution.  On the other hand, if Trump starts running as an independent early on, then he loses a lot of access that only one of the two major parties can provide.  In other words, outside the party, there's no "party."  For example, he would presumably not be invited to GOP debates like last night's.  He wouldn't be discussed in the same type of soft-touch tones as he was by all but Paul last night. And, finally, as an avowed independent unwilling to fight for the GOP nomination, Trump would presumably face more pressure about the credibility of both his dedication to the campaign and his conservative bona fides.

What Should the GOP Do?  In the end (and presuming that the majority of the GOP does not want Trump to be the nominee), the GOP establishment needs to think about how to get to scenario 2 as quickly as possible.  In essence, they need to think about how to run the nomination process with Trump in it as if it were the nomination process without Trump.  (They have been trying to do this, in a somewhat disorganized way.)  This will preserve the resources and focus of the GOP for the discussion and strategizing that is required for the general election fight.  Furthermore, it will distance the eventual nominee from the difficulties of both being associated with, and generally having to figure out "how to deal with" Trump's positions.  The question at hand is how can the GOP establishment (which now includes the Tea Party) excommunicate Trump without appearing to dismiss him.  (As Seth Masket reminds us, it's a delicate and difficult business to dismiss a candidate from a party in the US.)

In the end, though, unless Scenario 1 unfolds, GOP supporters need to start thinking about the GOP's Trump Rump.  What that would look like---who would "leave the GOP" for Trump, who would fight for the GOP because Trump left (think "immigration," "gender," "proudly bald," and so forth)---is unclear at this point, but that's kind of my point: even if Trump isn't 100% certain to follow through on his threat to run (even briefly) as an independent, the fact that he might---definitely made more credible by both his statement in the debate and the perception of his performance/reception at the debate---changes the calculus not just of one player, but of no fewer than 16---all of whom the GOP collectively needs to be concerned about.





2 comments:

  1. So, if I read this correctly, the Republican Party should quickly coalesce around someone other than Trump? But how can that be done?

    I agree with Arendt Lijphart that primaries were a mistake. The U.S. could have coherent political parties if it weren't for primaries. Yes, we would then have a multi-party system (even Britain and Canada do now; Duvergers Law is dead) but that would be a good thing.

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  2. I didn't flesh that out in the post, but my feeling is that the only way it happens is for one of the leading candidates to step back and endorse one of the other leading candidates. The problem with "the Republican Party" as an actor is that there really isn't such as thing (as many of the recent posts about Trump, etc., have noted). So, given that the money channels are essentially a free-for-all, the only feasible way for the party to quickly coalesce around a candidate (or smaller group of candidates) is in the hands of the candidates themselves.

    Will they do this? Eventually, yes. How quick remains to be seen. My hunch is that it has a lot to do with Jeb's desire to actually run. If he bowed out, he could definitely pick the presumptive "establishment" nominee---especially if that nominee was someone on the younger side (i.e., not closely associated with the Bush legacy).

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