(From AT) 2015 If Palin and Levin Walk, the 2016 Nomination Is Not Worth Having

 

My Post at AmericanThinker

It's all very simple, the Republicans lost Florida in the 2012 presidential election by 0.88, if conservatives stay at home in 2016 in the same amount they did in 2012 then there is no chance of the GOP winning. If conservatives are advised by Governor Palin, (unlike in 2012,) and Mark Levin to either stay home or vote third party then it is impossible to see how Florida could be won by e.g. Jeb Bush.

However, for arguments sake if, because of Bush's Florida connection and if the economy is in recession, Florida is won then Ohio -2.98% Virginia -3.88% Colorado -5.36% also have to be roped in. The road to 270 Electoral College votes is extremely difficult under the most optimal of circumstances, utter realism indicates it is impossible with the slightest bleeding off of actual or potential votes from 2012. 

What Ralph Nader did for Al Gore's hopes in 2000 would be a pinprick compared to what mountain a Republican nominee would face with a conservative base doing a de Blasio back turn. There is no comparison with Reagan's 1980 victory even though there was Republican, John Anderson, running as an Independent who got 6.6% of the vote. This is because a Republican won't win both New York and California,as Reagan did for the foreseeable future.

If the Republican nominee is an establishment figure, a Bush or a Christie, then they have to face the question of their relationship with Governor Palin. Mitt Romney didn't' have her as part of his campaign or even have her address the 2012 convention (at which she was the star just four years earlier.)

 What did that avail him? There is of course no way to determine if the millions of potential GOP voters who stayed home might have turned out if Mitt had reached out to Palin and if she had endorsed and campaigned for him subsequently (and vocally) but all that is know is that they didn't, and he lost.

At this point in time things are much more in flux within the GOP than they were in 2012. For, perhaps the last time, enough evangelicals and conservatives "held their noses" and voted for Romney for him to improve,by one two states, on John McCain's 2008 Electoral College performance. 

Since then the conservative activists, whose turnout in the 2014 mid-terms was crucial to the GOP's landslide, are in no mood for what they see as a RINO Establishment candidate.

If there is any backsliding on amnesty (there are other touchstone issues but that is the deal breaker) as they see it that would doubtless be the final straw-what happens then is the big question.

In a party whose conservative elements mounted the biggest challenge to a House Speakers re-election since 1923 and whose rank and file are furious with Boehner's win, the slightest spark could cause a conflagration whose end result is either mass electoral abstention or a total breach. 

Boehner and the Establishment may win positions by using money, power and the threat of loss of position on elected representatives, but they have no power whatsoever over whether the rank and file stay home on election day or bolt. If either of these two happen then the Establishment will only have itself to blame. If in some misguided manner they see this as a medium term good thing, i.e. they are willing to throw away a presidential election to rid themselves of the "Tea Party Baggage"the will inflict permanent "Whig party" damage. 

If the rank and file depart there is no possible way for a rump East Coast Establishment Republican party in name only to ever win again nationally. For the rank and file conservatives such a fate is a lesser concern. If a truly conservative third party wins conservative states legislatures, where abortion can be managed along conservative lines, then the Dem's can have the presidency in perpetuity. 

The heartland can get along quite well managing their own affairs (especially as the same-sex marriage laws seem to be cemented in and the presidency has no meaning in relation to them) and blocking leftists presidents in either the House or Senate.

This rump Establishment party is exactly what arch-Establishment figure David Brooks called for in classic elitist tomes;"It's smarter to build a new wing of the Republican Party, one that can compete in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast. It's smarter to build a new division that is different the way the Westin is different than the Sheraton." 

He (and most certainly the "Sheraton Party" is welcome to him-good riddance), as I, see the utter incompatibility of the two wings but sees the two "Republican" parties somehow working together to progress their mutual agendas. That this is impossible is clearsightedly set out by Dylan Byers in discussing Brooks concept;"I'm even more skeptical about this "coalition of the incompatible." That's what the Republican party is now. If it worked, the factions wouldn't need to split.' 

How real is the threat of Palin or Levin or, more likely both under the circumstances, decamping one way or the other? Very if the amnesty situation deteriorates whilst there is such of a 'Romney was the last-never again" feeling amongst conservatives who are seething at what they see as the betrayal of the "mandate of 2014." Neither Palin nor Levin have been shy in expressing their feelings on the matter;

Levin (December 15th) "I am one inch away from leaving the GOP" and in the nub of the matter "asking Republicans if they think this is a joke, if they think they can just lie to Republicans and conservatives with impunity about defunding Obamacare and fighting Obama’s illegal amnesty."

Palin (on illegal aliens June 16th 2014) "this one issue is driving me to renounce my Republican ties" and "Palin threatens to leave the Republican Party" (over amnesty).Palin has mentioned a third party on  a number of occasions.

Here is the respected pollster Pat Caddell:"

POLLSTER PAT CADDELL: ONE-THIRD OF GOP ‘HANGING BY A THREAD FROM BOLTING"

“The alienation among Republican voters is so high, that a quarter to one-third of the Republican party are hanging by a thread from bolting.”

Caddell was asked “does the math show you that there could be an uprising and could the GOP go the way of the Whig Party?”

Caddell: "The GOP leadership, the lawyers, the lobbyists, the consultant class of the Republican party, and all the big donors don’t understand that these people are angry. … They are saying that John Boehner doesn’t care about them, and all he cares about is the special interests. I’ve never seen anything like this in the base of a party. And that is why the analogy to the Whigs is not so far-fetched."

The Establishment can take up the lefts mantra that "Palin is irrelevant" or as Robert Costa advised "Palin is diminished" but her 91% endorsement success in the 2012 mid-terms belies such nonsense. Palin's endosement is the prize desperately sought after and the key to success for the likes of e.g. Cruz/Fischer/Hayley amongst many others. If she asked her millions of followers to follow her out of the GOP, or indicated to them that they would be better off fishing on election day, the effect on the presidential campaign would be massive. 

If Levin's huge listener audience (and who knows, perhaps Limbaugh might join in) was also advised of either path, then it would be foolish to imagine that the few states that the GOP desperately needed to have any chance of victory-and the loss of just one would end their hopes-would not be put out of reach.

The ball is in the Establishments court-not Palin's or Levin's. If the Establishment chooses to betray the voters who gave them control of Congress, and chooses to support Obama's amnesty agenda and other liberal policies then when, not if, the rupture comes it will be their doing. 

I wrote that possibly the GOP's best and only chance would be a Palin/Bush(in any combination) ticket as that would be the only way to heal the breech and keep the party together. A true conservative Virginia gentleman and strong Palin supporter advised he is against that "because it is the only thing that will save the GOP and it is beyond saving." Such is the plight the Establishment has visited on

 the party-they will pay the price if it goes the way of the Whigs-perhaps the old gentleman is right.