CPUd
07-20-2016, 09:11 AM
Anti-Trump forces think they can get a candidate next week
Donald Trump's most persistent opponents from the Right believe that they can recruit a major presidential candidate to run in the fall election, perhaps even within the next several days.
"We believe that it's not only possible but it is plausible that a candidate will emerge, will get on the ballot, and will fight to give Americans a better option, and so we're not giving up," Better for America chief strategist Joel Searby said Tuesday evening before a like-minded crowd in Cleveland.
Searby offered that comfort to a group of conservative activists and writers who opposed Donald Trump over the last several months just as Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., formally nominated the real estate mogul to be the GOP standard-bearer in the fall presidential election, and one day after a last-ditch #NeverTrump rebellion failed on the floor of the Republican National Convention.
They even insisted that the logistical impediments to launching a third-party candidacy — access to ballots in various states not least among them — could still be overcome.
Stay abreast of the latest developments from nation's capital and beyond with curated News Alerts from the Washington Examiner news desk and delivered to your inbox.
For the logistical questions to matter, however, the third-party optimists need a candidate. Searby refused to name any names, but he hinted that a candidate such at 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney — not Romney, perhaps, but someone of his stature — might still make a bid for the White House.
"More and more Americans of the highest stature have reached out to us and continue to ask questions," he said. "We're getting calls and emails that say, 'now, tell me again how I can do this?' And so I just want to give you hope that there are a lot of Americans who are looking at this moment and saying we have to do better."
One official involved with the effort said privately that another shooting or terrorist attack might serve as a "catalyzing event" for one of those prospective candidates. The recent spate of violence at home and abroad was certainly on the minds of the crowd.
"Our hearts grieve against the backdrop of just the last week, Nice, followed by Turkey, followed by Baton Rouge — and that's just three days," John Kingston, a conservative political donor who has worked with the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol to draft a candidate, told attendees. "And the concept that the best we can do is represented by these two candidates sits very very heavily on our hearts."
If a candidate were to step forward, he or she would have to clear two logistical hurdles to mount a campaign that could contend for the White House. One is the last-minute staffing and fundraising that would be required, and the other is making sure the third-party candidate's name appears on the ballot across the country, even in states such as Texas where the deadline has already passed.
The Better for America team expects to unveil a legal argument for challenging the constitutionality of such ballot deadlines, buttressed by conservative heavyweight legal scholars, in the coming days.
They maintain that they'll have the money and the campaign staff to mount a competitive campaign, bolstered by disheartened Trump opponents. They even think that team could win the White House outright, rather than merely throw the race to presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, if they can find a center-right presidential nominee to run with a centrist vice presidential candidate as their standard-bearers.
"We think we can spool up a presidential campaign in a matter of days, that's how much talent we have," Searby said.
Still, the optimism was too much for some attendees. National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru, whose magazine memorably released an "Against Trump" issue before the Iowa Caucuses, turned to a friend during the speeches and remarked that the event brought to mind the famous line from the movie "Clockwork Orange": "It's not the despair. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand."
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2597034
Donald Trump's most persistent opponents from the Right believe that they can recruit a major presidential candidate to run in the fall election, perhaps even within the next several days.
"We believe that it's not only possible but it is plausible that a candidate will emerge, will get on the ballot, and will fight to give Americans a better option, and so we're not giving up," Better for America chief strategist Joel Searby said Tuesday evening before a like-minded crowd in Cleveland.
Searby offered that comfort to a group of conservative activists and writers who opposed Donald Trump over the last several months just as Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., formally nominated the real estate mogul to be the GOP standard-bearer in the fall presidential election, and one day after a last-ditch #NeverTrump rebellion failed on the floor of the Republican National Convention.
They even insisted that the logistical impediments to launching a third-party candidacy — access to ballots in various states not least among them — could still be overcome.
Stay abreast of the latest developments from nation's capital and beyond with curated News Alerts from the Washington Examiner news desk and delivered to your inbox.
For the logistical questions to matter, however, the third-party optimists need a candidate. Searby refused to name any names, but he hinted that a candidate such at 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney — not Romney, perhaps, but someone of his stature — might still make a bid for the White House.
"More and more Americans of the highest stature have reached out to us and continue to ask questions," he said. "We're getting calls and emails that say, 'now, tell me again how I can do this?' And so I just want to give you hope that there are a lot of Americans who are looking at this moment and saying we have to do better."
One official involved with the effort said privately that another shooting or terrorist attack might serve as a "catalyzing event" for one of those prospective candidates. The recent spate of violence at home and abroad was certainly on the minds of the crowd.
"Our hearts grieve against the backdrop of just the last week, Nice, followed by Turkey, followed by Baton Rouge — and that's just three days," John Kingston, a conservative political donor who has worked with the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol to draft a candidate, told attendees. "And the concept that the best we can do is represented by these two candidates sits very very heavily on our hearts."
If a candidate were to step forward, he or she would have to clear two logistical hurdles to mount a campaign that could contend for the White House. One is the last-minute staffing and fundraising that would be required, and the other is making sure the third-party candidate's name appears on the ballot across the country, even in states such as Texas where the deadline has already passed.
The Better for America team expects to unveil a legal argument for challenging the constitutionality of such ballot deadlines, buttressed by conservative heavyweight legal scholars, in the coming days.
They maintain that they'll have the money and the campaign staff to mount a competitive campaign, bolstered by disheartened Trump opponents. They even think that team could win the White House outright, rather than merely throw the race to presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, if they can find a center-right presidential nominee to run with a centrist vice presidential candidate as their standard-bearers.
"We think we can spool up a presidential campaign in a matter of days, that's how much talent we have," Searby said.
Still, the optimism was too much for some attendees. National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru, whose magazine memorably released an "Against Trump" issue before the Iowa Caucuses, turned to a friend during the speeches and remarked that the event brought to mind the famous line from the movie "Clockwork Orange": "It's not the despair. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand."
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2597034