The Case for Kasich as POTUS

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Part II - The Kasich Path to Victory

1. 1,237 Delegates
Many comments are raising the fact that Kasich cannot mathematically reach 1,237 delegates, before the convention. While that is true, it really does not matter because realistically (as opposed to theoretically) at this point nobody can. Cruz certainly can't do it, with the three of them still competing, and while Trump could come very close, it is highly unlikely that he will. Therefore this one is going to the Convention, where nobody would have the necessary votes on the first ballot.

2. Convention Environment
The GOP Convention is being held in Cleveland and organized by the Ohio Republican party, which is loyal to Kasich. That alone gives Kasich some procedural advantages. By that time, Trump's negatives will begin to be felt in the media and with voters, especially the independent swing voters. Democrats will be playing up his negatives and running ads.  GOP will be genuinely looking who can get elected, and the delegates would vote in subsequent ballots, not out of loyalty to Trump, Cruz or Kasich, but out of necessity to try and win the Presidency, and hold its control of Congress.

3. Later Ballot Choices
After the initial ballots, the delegates will have a choice to nominate someone else, other than the three candidates. However that course of action would compromise the GOP Candidate from the start (the Democrats would have a field day with someone like Romney who"didn't run but used backroom deals"). To have any general election credibility, the only candidate which makes sense is one of the aforementioned three! And as I said, the only electable one is Kasich. Unless, Trump and Cruz team up on the first or second ballot, Kasich will eventually be the nominee!

Yes. And as I mentioned elsewhere, in the last 150 years, the GOP has had eight contested conventions, of which five ended up with a nominee other than the guy that was the frontrunner going in to that convention. So it's not like Governor Kasich is out of the question. I'm holding out hope that the #NeverTrump folks will find Kasich...

When was the last of those contested conventions before 1976 (which wound up with Ford winning on the first ballot)? I'd submit that comparisons to eras before the advent of the modern primary process aren't particularly germane.

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I don't know that anybody's arguing necessarily that Kasich wouldn't be a better general election candidate than Trump or Cruz. Only that he stands next to no chance at winning the primary by any but faintly sleazy means.

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I don't know that anybody's arguing necessarily that Kasich wouldn't be a better general election candidate than Trump or Cruz. Only that he stands next to no chance at winning the primary by any but faintly sleazy means.

And that is exactly one of my points.  Even many Trump supporters concede that Kasich is a "decent candidate", who could win the GE.  And at the end of the day, that is all that matters.  And the primary voters should be told of the possible repercussions in the most direct way possible.  If they still want to make that "protest" vote, that is their democratic right, but they should be under no illusions that "somehow" there will be no  repercussions in the general election!

You are free to make the argument that electability is all that matters. They are free to reject it, as they have been doing. Or not just to reject it out of hand, but to reject it because they disagree with it (whether or not we think their reasons for disagreement are legitimate). Characterizing every Trump vote as a "protest" vote is condescending in exactly the way a lot of these people feel they've been talked down to for years.

Side note: It sounds like I'm defending Trump voters, and I'm not. I think they're making a stupid decision for bad reasons. But talking down to them won't help.

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How would the party be unified in this scenario? How would they get over the charges that they just wasted a year of everybody's time, and millions upon millions of dollars of donors' and states' money running primaries which they ultimately were going to decide didn't matter?

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How would the party be unified in this scenario? How would they get over the charges that they just wasted a year of everybody's time, and millions upon millions of dollars of donors' and states' money running primaries which they ultimately were going to decide didn't matter?

Unless Trump gets the 1,237 delegates, and the party tried to deny him the nomination, I don't see a problem. The candidates competed in primaries and caucuses, nobody got the required majority and one of them was chosen at the Convention. Where there would also be a problem is if someone else now tried to get into the game, at this late stage (Romney, Ryan).

As for unifying the party, are you seriously suggesting that Trump or Cruz are better positioned to unify the party than Kasich? In the CBS poll, Kasich was universally picked as the second choice of Trump and Cruz voters.

UNIVERSALLY? That seems difficult to believe.

And I'm not saying any of what you said. I'm asking how, if for instance Trump wound up with 1200 delegates, handing the nomination to Kasich would upend things. Not saying Trump deserves anything, not stumping for him. But to just blindly say there would be no problem seems willfully ignorant.

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How would the party be unified in this scenario? How would they get over the charges that they just wasted a year of everybody's time, and millions upon millions of dollars of donors' and states' money running primaries which they ultimately were going to decide didn't matter?

Unless Trump gets the 1,237 delegates, and the party tried to deny him the nomination, I don't see a problem. The candidates competed in primaries and caucuses, nobody got the required majority and one of them was chosen at the Convention. Where there would also be a problem is if someone else now tried to get into the game, at this late stage (Romney, Ryan).

As for unifying the party, are you seriously suggesting that Trump or Cruz are better positioned to unify the party than Kasich? In the CBS poll, Kasich was universally picked as the second choice of Trump and Cruz voters.

UNIVERSALLY? That seems difficult to believe.

And I'm not saying any of what you said. I'm asking how, if for instance Trump wound up with 1200 delegates, handing the nomination to Kasich would upend things. Not saying Trump deserves anything, not stumping for him. But to just blindly say there would be no problem seems willfully ignorant.

If Trump is so close to 1,237, I am sure that, as the renowned author of the Art of the Deal, he can strike a few deals and get the 37 votes he needs .

And I did not say there would be no complaints.  If this goes to Convention, both candidates who are not chosen will initially cry wolf.  What I am saying is that if this is done within the rules, those complaints will eventually be forgotten.

And I'm saying that last is an assertion made apparently with full confidence but no evidence.

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How would the party be unified in this scenario? How would they get over the charges that they just wasted a year of everybody's time, and millions upon millions of dollars of donors' and states' money running primaries which they ultimately were going to decide didn't matter?

Unless Trump gets the 1,237 delegates, and the party tried to deny him the nomination, I don't see a problem. The candidates competed in primaries and caucuses, nobody got the required majority and one of them was chosen at the Convention. Where there would also be a problem is if someone else now tried to get into the game, at this late stage (Romney, Ryan).

As for unifying the party, are you seriously suggesting that Trump or Cruz are better positioned to unify the party than Kasich? In the CBS poll, Kasich was universally picked as the second choice of Trump and Cruz voters.

UNIVERSALLY? That seems difficult to believe.

And I'm not saying any of what you said. I'm asking how, if for instance Trump wound up with 1200 delegates, handing the nomination to Kasich would upend things. Not saying Trump deserves anything, not stumping for him. But to just blindly say there would be no problem seems willfully ignorant.

If Trump is so close to 1,237, I am sure that, as the renowned author of the Art of the Deal, he can strike a few deals and get the 37 votes he needs .

And I did not say there would be no complaints.  If this goes to Convention, both candidates who are not chosen will initially cry wolf.  What I am saying is that if this is done within the rules, those complaints will eventually be forgotten.

And I'm saying that last is an assertion made apparently with full confidence but no evidence.

Having "evidence" of future behavior is kind of difficult (without a time machine ).  But I do believe that if one of them fairly wins (whether with 1,237 votes before Cleveland, or at the Convention, following all the rules), that the other two would fall in line (perhaps not very enthusiastically but eventually they will).

Ugh. I'm not asking for evidence of something that hasn't happened yet. Only evidence for why you believe everybody would just fall in line with nominating the guy that was most rejected by the party, of the last three left standing.

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So why should everybody just rally behind a candidate that they pretty decisively rejected in the primaries?

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I think you're vastly overestimating the average voter's understanding of and acceptance of the byzantine rules of the nominating process, that's all.

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Again, asserted with absolutely no backup. It feels to me as though a claim like, "Voters will flock to whoever the nominee is even if he's somebody they roundly rejected in the primaries!" requires a bit of evidence.

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Nobody said that's the biggest problem for the GOP. People are arguing that the GOP base would likely not blithely sit by as someone who currently has fewer delegates than a confirmed loser like Marco Rubio gets handed the nomination.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/answering-ross-douthat