GOP candidates shouldn’t try to outdo Donald Trump - By Jennifer Rubin

[DonViejo]

For those unfamiliar with Jennifer Rubin; she's the resident wing nut on the OpEd pages of the Washington Post -- DV

By Jennifer Rubin July 1 at 11:30 AM

The latest national CNN poll confirms what we suspected: The presence of Donald Trump in the race helps one candidate, Jeb Bush. If this is more than a passing phenomenon, the conservative pundits who fawned over Trump and the GOP contenders who seek to ingratiate themselves with him might want to rethink their approach.

In recent national and a raft of early primary state polling, Trump seems to have accumulated loose support from other not-Bush candidates. As the hard right’s not-Bush candidate du jour, Trump siphons support from both self-marginalizing candidates like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), down to an appalling 3 percent in the CNN national poll, and candidates trying to straddle the mainstream/grassroots divide like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (at 6 percent). The reaction of Cruz, Mike Huckabee (down to 5 percent), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (at 2 percent), and Rick Santorum (4 percent) is to scream louder and be even wackier in their policy stances so as to compete with Trump. But not one beats Trump in the crazy department. If voters are looking for an outlandish loudmouth, they might go for the “real” thing, Trump.

The lesson for other serious, mainstream contenders is this: Don’t compete in Trump’s lane. Both Walker and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) are Bush’s stiffest competition. Each appears to be dealing with Trump and other gadflies in his own way. Rubio, to his credit, is essentially ignoring them. Although somewhat hesitant on the flag issue, he has been levelheaded on the gay marriage decision and consistently credible on foreign and domestic policy. Walker has sunk from his first-place position early in the race as each new candidate has entered the field. On one hand, this is partially of Walker’s own making as he deliberately focused on foreign policy preparation and his state’s budget (which was nearly finalized yesterday). On the other hand, he is sometimes seen looking over his shoulder at the Cruz-Trump-Huckabee contingent, hinting at limits on legal immigration and reversing himself on illegal immigration reform and Common Core as well as championing the idea of a constitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court decision. This, I would suggest, has only hurt him with mainstream Republicans who might be inclined to look for a not-Bush alternative, while failing to be “out there” enough for the far right.

The not-Bush competition is fierce, but I don’t believe it is mathematically possible to beat him by ignoring the centrist voters, or by scaring them off in a vain attempt to rob votes from fringe candidates. Let the latter squabble among themselves and self-destruct. Even if one of the them prevails in Iowa, a far-right candidate is not likely to do well in more diverse settings. To beat Bush, a top-tier candidate will have to be a slightly more conservative but entirely credible Republican who can, in essence, say he is more conservative than Bush but still electable and comes without the dynasty baggage.

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[TexasProgresive]

1. But it would be so much fun

Let the clowns trump Trump.