EMAIL DETAILS

David French signals the death of the ‘Never Trump’ movement. Sad! - The
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/01/david-french-signals-the-death-of-the-never-trump-movement/?postshare=881464793506736&tid=ss_tw

David French signals the death of the ‘Never Trump’ movement. Sad!

(Mike Segar/Reuters)

The "Never Trump" movement died Tuesday night.

That's when the loose affiliation of Republican pundits and conservative
thinkers, banded together by their shared distaste for Donald Trump as the
GOP nominee, leaked the news to Bloomberg Politics that conservative
lawyer David
French was the secret third-party candidate
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05/31/conservative-tennessee-attorney-david-french-is-urged-to-enter-presidential-race-as-independent/?hpid=hp_special-topic-chain_davidfrench-915pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory>
they have been working to recruit into the 2016 race as an alternative to
the real estate mogul.

The news of French ended days of frantic speculation set off by a tweet
<https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/737025756488978432> — yes, this is
the world we now live in — by Weekly Standard editor and "Never Trump"
leader Bill Kristol.

Just a heads up over this holiday weekend: There will be an independent
candidate--an impressive one, with a strong team and a real chance.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) May 29, 2016
<https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/737025756488978432>

And, it confirmed what many — including me — had long suspected: The "Never
Trump" movement is totally out of options.

Don't get me wrong: French, judging from his résumé, is an impressive guy.
Decorated military man, conservative thinker and writer for National Review
and so on and so forth. And, heck, Mitt Romney likes him
<https://twitter.com/MittRomney/status/737802980607557632>!

I know David French to be an honorable, intelligent and patriotic person. I
look forward to following what he has to say.

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) June 1, 2016
<https://twitter.com/MittRomney/status/737802980607557632>

Here's the problem: No one — and I mean *no one* — outside a small circle
of conservatives and anti-Trump folks knows who David French is. (Sidebar: He
*does* look a lot like Mike from "Veep." <http://twitter.com/DavidAFrench>)
For a movement that tried to recruit the likes of Dallas Mavericks owner
Mark Cuban, Ohio Gov. John Kasich or even Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-gop-effort-to-draft-an-independent-candidate-to-derail-trump/2016/05/14/1b04682e-1877-11e6-924d-838753295f9a_story.html>,
settling on a total unknown has to be a disappointment —no matter what
Kristol, Romney or anyone else says.

[*David French trial balloon underscores the failure of Never Trump
conservatives to field an independent candidate
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/06/01/daily-202-david-french-trial-balloon-underscores-the-failure-of-never-trump-conservatives-to-field-an-independent-candidate/574e4cd8981b92a22dcdf01d/>*
]

This is a swing and a miss, and a very high-profile one. Even if French
runs — and it's not entirely clear yet whether he actually will — his
ability to affect the race is virtually nonexistent. Not only is it too
late to even qualify for the ballot in lots of states but also even in
those where qualifying is still open, it takes money to collect the
necessary signatures for ballot access. It's hard for me to imagine lots
(or even littles) of major Republican donors ponying up money for someone
named David French who has roughly the same chance of being elected
president this November as the Sweet Meteor O'Death
<https://twitter.com/smod2016>.

5-Minute Fix newsletter

Keeping up with politics is easy now.

Why couldn't "Never Trump" find someone else? After all, there are plenty
of Republicans who hate Trump and think he spells the end of the GOP.

There's no question that the lateness of the hour had some effect. To run
as a third-party candidate without guaranteed ballot access at this point
in the election cycle is, effectively, a kamikaze mission. There's no hope
of winning — even if you happened to catch fire. (People writing you in to
be president ain't happening.)

But, there's more to it as well. For all of the bluster from the likes of
Kristol, it wasn't entirely clear that the "Never Trump" movement had
actual funding behind it. Unless you were prepared to spend $1 billion or
so of your own money, there were no guarantees that you could get money
from anywhere else — not to mention a staff and all of the other things
real campaigns need.

Then there's the Trump factor. If you decide to run as the candidate of the
"Never Trump" movement, you have to expect a full-frontal assault from the
real estate billionaire. He will savage you, your family, your business and
anything else you care about. That's a powerful deterrent to lots of
private citizens — including many who are independently wealthy and simply
don't really need to run for office. Especially considering how long the
odds are of even being relevant in the race.

The emergence of David French as the likely "Never Trump" standard-bearer
is another win for Trump over the forces within the GOP aligned against
him. They failed. He triumphed. Again.


Eric D. Schwerin
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com

Sent from my iPhon