Subject: Stitch — Voters: Ever Trump, Establishment Scrambles for Plan B or C or D
From: Jonathan Allen <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 May 2016 12:36:32 +0000
List-Id: dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8fmc list <dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8f.326717.list-id.mcsv.net>

** THE BIG QUESTION

Is the continued Republican resistance to Donald Trump isolated to big cities in blue states or will he have trouble with suburban Republican voters in swing states?

WHAT'S AN ANTI-TRUMP REPUBLICAN TO DO NOW?
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SEAN SULLIVAN & KATIE ZEZIMA of the Washington Post explore what's next for the vanquished side in the Republican Trump wars, now that the Donald is either the "likely nominee" (as legacy media organizations call him) or the "presumptive nominee (as pretty much everyone else, including Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, puts it).
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"One strategy under discussion is to focus on helping down-ballot GOP candidates while sitting out the presidential race under the belief that Trump will lose to Clinton no matter what. A more drastic and difficult option: rallying support for a third-party candidate who could uphold traditional Republican positions but would almost certainly steal votes from Trump."

—Sullivan & Zezima/WaPo (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/anti-trump-republicans-confront-a-dilemma-are-they-ready-to-help-elect-clinton/2016/05/03/c84a1f56-10b6-11e6-8967-7ac733c56f12_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_never-trump-940pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory)

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LANHEE CHEN, the adviser to Marco Rubio and policy director on Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, contemplated the latter option on Sidewire last night as soon as polls in Indiana closed and Trump was declared the winner.
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"This raises both the seriousness and significance of discussions about a third-party alternative. Now, all that's needed is a candidate. Simple enough, right?"

—Lanhee Chen/Sidewire (https://sidewire.com/politics/dashboard/articles/2f5ca654060fbf94ba23e4796db6c786/commentary/f45ce88d-9819-4e90-ac04-279b12514154)

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Asked who might fit that profile, here's what Chen said:
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"Someone with strong conservative credentials who wants to raise his or her profile in national politics going forward. Or, alternatively, someone with nothing to lose, who doesn't mind alienating a few million Trump supporters."

—Chen/Sidewire (https://sidewire.com/politics/dashboard/articles/2f5ca654060fbf94ba23e4796db6c786/commentary/a192104b-8a42-46cc-a843-c5176553c89d)

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THE THIRD-PARTY REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE SCENARIO has a little bit of oxygen because establishment Republicans remain deeply concerned that Trump will smother the party's down-ballot candidates.
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"Trump will help Dems expand Senate map, giving them the ability to spread out the GOP outside group money and giving them little chance of coming close. The presidential game is over. The senate game is almost over. Time to go long on the House."

—a D.C. Republican strategist/to Stitch.

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Several prominent Republicans said last night that they would support Hillary Clinton over Trump. They'll hardly be the only ones, said an outside-D.C. GOP operative.
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"After it's over, you'll 'see' a lot of Rs voted for Hillary. They'll never admit it, but the numbers won't lie."

—a Republican operative/to Stitch.

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For his part, Trump came out swinging at Clinton.
During his victory speech last night, Trump hit Clinton over comments she made in Ohio earlier this year about putting coal mines out of business.
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"We’re going to get those miners back to work."

—Donald Trump

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He took another shot on "Morning Joe" Wednesday, telling the A.M. shift at 30 Rock that her judgment and her email scandal should disqualify her from seeking the presidency.
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"She shouldn’t even be allowed to run."

—Trump/"Morning Joe"

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The time for bloodsport has arrived.

AND CNN MARKS THE START OF THE GENERAL ELECTION with a poll of adults (http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/04/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-poll-general-election/)  that shows Clinton with a 54 percent to 41 percent lead over Trump.

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**

THUMPED BY TRUMP, CRUZ DEPARTS
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Trump crushed Ted Cruz in Indiana last night, taking 53 percent to Cruz's 37 percent (and John Kasich's 8 percent) statewide, sweeping the state's 9 congressional districts and picking up all 57 available delegates.
* It was the end of a horrible, no-good, very bad day for Cruz, who watched Trump accuse his father of having ties to Lee Harvey Oswald, the killer of President John F. Kennedy and who, far too late to make a difference and at odds with the gentility he had previously endorsed, lashed out at Trump by calling him a "serial philanderer" and "pathological liar."

All of it was enough to convince Cruz to end his campaign a month before the final primaries.
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"We gave it everything we’ve got. But the voters chose another path."

—Ted Cruz

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** TRIVIAL PURSUITS
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ABOUT TODAY
May the 4th be with you on this Star Wars Day.

YESTERDAY'S TRIVIA
BOB SHRUM was the first to correctly respond that it was Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) who gave Hillary Clinton a copy of Machiavelli's "The Prince" to give her then-newborn granddaughter, Charlotte.

TODAY'S TRIVIA
Courtesy of Bob: Which President delivered his Inaugural Address entirely from memory, without either a text or notes?

Send answers to [email-masked]. The first person to respond correctly wins respect, admiration and the right to pose tomorrow's trivia question.

PLEASE SEND TIPS, suggestions, comments, complaints, corrections andpictures of people in the political world dressed up as Star Wars characters to [email-masked].

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**

INDIANA IS TINDER FOR THE BERN
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No, not that Tinder! The kindling kind of tinder that lights a fire. Sanders talked a little trash last night after pulling off an upset in Indiana, 52.5 percent to 47.5 percent, as KATE LINTHICUM reports for the L.A. Times (http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-live-updates-indian-bernie-sanders-there-is-nothing-i-would-like-mor-1462329026-htmlstory.html) .
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"The Clinton campaign thinks this campaign is over. ... They’re wrong. Maybe it’s over for the insiders and the party establishment, but the voters in Indiana had a different idea."

—Bernie Sanders/LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-live-updates-indian-bernie-sanders-there-is-nothing-i-would-like-mor-1462329026-htmlstory.html)

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But the truth is that Sanders can't win the Democratic nomination without getting a majority of the superdelegates to flip from Clinton's column, where they are now, to his side.

Sanders netted 5 delegates last night and currently trails Clinton 2,202 to 1,455 in the overall delegate count. The threshold for the nomination is 2,383 delegates.

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**

BOOK CHAT RECAP: STEVE HILTON
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CrowdPAC co-founder and CEO Steve Hilton, a former adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron, chatted about his book "More Human" on Sidewire yesterday. The book explores rethinking political, government and economic systems to decentralize policy-making and better serve individuals.
HERE ARE SOME HIGHLIGHTS
On an area where there is a big disparity between policy and individual needs
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"The way we try to help people hurt by globalization and technology. Centralized bureaucratic training programs don't fit with their lives or give them the skills they will need in the future."

—Steve Hilton/Sidewire (https://sidewire.com/politics/dashboard/articles/b230171370af032a80c475baaa95d724/commentary/ad328514-e4d1-4998-b979-1feeb4b26fea)

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On whether the U.S. could handle a multi-party system
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"Yes. But I think we have a kind of permanent coalition government here in America thanks to the separation of powers. I'm not convinced that literally starting a third party would make much difference."

—Hilton/Sidewire (https://sidewire.com/politics/dashboard/articles/b230171370af032a80c475baaa95d724/commentary/9fcb5924-f82f-46d7-9f9c-2af1a6577824)

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READ THE WHOLE CONVERSATION BY CLICKING HERE (https://sidewire.com/politics/dashboard/articles/b230171370af032a80c475baaa95d724) .

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—30—

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