It’s simple math: Three is greater than one

These are people who, when they put one foot forward, honestly have no idea of what they’re going to do with the other foot   Tom Jimson   Drowned Hopes

The really fun part about watching a socially retarded hedonist, and those who enable him, is watching them stumble and fumble around, desperately trying to convince the rest of us that everything is just hunky-dory, like the beat cop standing in the mouth of an alley in an old movie, “OK, everybody move along, nothing to see here, go about your business.”

As we speak, Don Juan (the ladies Don Juan anything to do with him) and his RNC family traitor flunky, Ronna Romney McDaniel, are flailing around, trying to convince the world that it’s totally normal for an incumbent president to suspend the democratic process when running for reelection. “Presidents normally suspend the primary process, it’s wasteful and expensive for the state parties to run primaries when there’s no doubt as to the outcome.” Like everything else with Trump, it’s a lie wrapped in a thin veneer of truth.

Someone in my comments on a similar subject remarked that they didn’t remember Obama’s primary campaign in 2012 either. That’s for a good reason, no credible challenger stepped forward to run against Obama in 2012. Just like nobody stepped forward against George W. Bush in 2004, Bill Clinton in 1996, or Ronald Reagan in 1984. There’s that pesky nugget of truth again, when sitting presidents are functioning normally and effectively, the party tends to leave them alone in the primaries. Gerald Ford in 1976, and George H.W. Bush in 1992 were weak and ineffective, faced primary challengers, and won the primaries, but it ended up costing them the general election. And that is highly likely to happen again in 2020, despite the best efforts of Trump and the RNC.

Trump’s problem is, much like in 2016, buried in the numbers. Former Massachusetts Governor William Weld announced his primary candidacy early, and then proceeded to scrounge for votes on mainline networks like CNN and MSNBC, which is kind of like nosing for truffles in the Mojave desert. This was actually a simple matter for Trump, and required no real action on his part, since Weld was a solo act, and represented a part of the party that had fled Trump long ago. All Trump had to do was to not engage Weld, what was Weld going to do, debate himself?

But now the rules and dynamics have changed, because now we have a game of Twister going on here. Joe Walsh and Mark Sanford have joined the fray, and they represent much more current iterations of competition for Trump, especially since they don’t carry the stigma of having bolted the party to run for VP on the Libertarian ticket in 2016. I know what you’re thinking, Ignore one loser, of ignore three losers, what’s the difference?

Here’s the difference. Regardless of what the individual state parties do regarding primaries, and despite the best efforts of the gruesome twosome, Romney and Trump, there is going to be a primary battle in 2020. Because not only is there safety in numbers, there is also strength and force in numbers. Trump ignored Weld, and he can ignore Walsh and Sanford too, but that doesn’t mean that they have to ignore him, or each other either.

As much as His and Her Lowness would love to see these three upstarts dipped in honey and buried up to their necks in sand, there are three formally announced candidates for the GOP nomination for President of the United States. Trump doesn’t want to debate? Fine, fuck him, he’s no fun to bring to the party anyway. The three campaigns can get together, and negotiate and settle on terms, times and dates for debates of their own. As announced and qualified candidates, they’ll qualify for network coverage under the equal time doctrine, since the DC is getting their debates aired. The same thing will go for any town halls that the candidates want to negotiate and set up. Considering the fact that the candidates will spend a majority of their time bashing Trump over the head with a 2×4’s, the networks will bash each other over the heads with 4×8’s competing for the privilege of hosting them.

If and when they finally hit the stump and start campaigning, they’ll receive network coverage on the nightly news. Maybe not as much as the Democratic candidates, since there’s no real suspense in the outcome of the GOP primaries, but enough. And not only will their attacks on Trump drive him insane with rage, they’ll form a composite library of 30 and 60 second attack ads for the eventual Democratic nominee, an incumbent president being flayed with a cat-o-nines by opponents in his own party. In a primary for Gods sake!

You need to look at this in the proper context. Weld, Walsh, and Sanford all know that they have no realistic shot at wresting the GOP nomination from Trump. But all of them, in one format or another, represent a wing of the “traditional” Republican party. And all of them are trying to keep the last embers of “traditional” conservatism going, setting themselves up as the future leaders of the conservative movement once Trump is marched off to Riker’s Island to star in his own new reality show, Orange is the new orange. And if any of these guys get any kind of traction at all, I wouldn’t be in the slightest bit surprised to see a Flake or Corker jump in, to try to get their slice of the pie.

It’s funny how pursuing what you most lust for can turn you into that which you despise the most. Trump’s voracious ego required him to coerce Romney McDaniel and state parties to prostitute themselves to protect him from any competition. But all that did was to make Trump look weak and pathetic, the very kryptonite to his ego. And now he’s going to get that competition anyway, and in circumstances that he can’t control. I love it when they eat their young!

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