Political Columnist: Republican Party On Its Death Bed
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Political columnist AB Stoddard is predicting chaos, and possibly doom, for the Republicans as Donald Trump moves closer to securing their nomination for President.
Stoddard, during an interview with Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, thinks Trump's continued success has brought about a crisis inside the party, with no real alternative available.
"This is a moment where the party's never seen such a phenomenon and the party's never been closer to death because of it. There's going to be one of two outcomes. They're going to get to the convention and somehow come up with another ticket, lose the Trump voters, risk losing the election over it, but maybe give Hillary four years and try to put the party back together with an appeal to lower middle class, working class voters, new focus against trade, and learn from it or Trump will be the nominee of the Republican party and people will leave the party. [They will] vote for Senate and other offices but not vote for the Presidency because people who are never Trump believe that he is not interested in the difficulty of the job, doesn't have the temperament, doesn't have the knowledge base, doesn't have the interest in learning about, is dangerous, loves dictators, has authoritarian impulses that will lead us down the wrong path and will put the country into a far worse state of crisis than we're in now. That's where we are. The Republican party is on its death bed."
She believes they're devising strategies now to keep voters from abandoning them once the general election comes around.
"If there's a convention fight, and that's an if, and if it succeeds and topples Trump, that person, whether it's Kasich or Cruz or someone else, is obviously going to stress the Supreme Court and that good stuff. They'll pick up some populist, culturally conservative, not pure conservatives who have gone to Trump. Certainly, they will, the real serious conservative and Republicans and conservatives who are with Trump would be swayed by that argument."
Despite all the fears Republicans have about Trump, she says many still think he would put up a better fight against Hillary Clinton than would his rival from Texas, Senator Ted Cruz.
"I think Republicans absolutely believe that she beats Cruz...This is the thing...Mitt Romney lost by fewer than 334,000 votes in six states. Donald Trump can go out and get people who've never voted. He'd have those numbers down in two weeks, like shooting fish in a barrel. 54% percent of the country votes. He gets people who've never voted. That's his weapon."
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