Kasich: GOP under Trump doesn't resemble the Republican Party

[Mr. Morden]

Oh, grow a pair and announce your primary challenge already!

Then run already.

This seems like a weird reaction, given that it's only 2018.  This isn't a parliamentary system, so Kasich can't force Trump out now, two years before the election.  Trump's term ends in more than two years whether Kasich announces now or six months from now.

[Mr. Morden]

That's right, the Republican Party is whatever Kasich says it is, even if 90% of Republicans voted for Trump.

Because he had the R next to his name on the ballot.

Exactly. That's literally all that matters to most Republican voters.

Right, but that's also why "He might as well be a Democrat" is temporary.  GOP voters will back whoever the party's standard bearer is, so Kasich's pariah status is only a function of the fact that Trump is now president.  But there's no guarantee that the next GOP nominee is going to be in the Trump mold.  If, in 2024, the party nominates someone like Marco Rubio, for example, then Kasich would be cool with that, and would no longer be saying that this isn't the Republican Party I know.

[Mr. Morden]

Oh, grow a pair and announce your primary challenge already!

Then run already.

This seems like a weird reaction, given that it's only 2018.  This isn't a parliamentary system, so Kasich can't force Trump out now, two years before the election.  Trump's term ends in more than two years whether Kasich announces now or six months from now.

It's just annoying to hear him go on and on about this but then just sit back and do nothing.

"Trump is not the GOP."
"So does that mean you're going to run for President, become a large figure who opposes Trump, and push voters in your direction?"
"I have no plans yet."

Does the same logic apply to the Dems who're presumed to be prepping for 2020?  E.g., "Why doesn't Martin O'Malley just announce his candidacy already?"  Or does it only matter for the potential Republican candidates?

[Mr. Morden]

Oh, grow a pair and announce your primary challenge already!

Then run already.

This seems like a weird reaction, given that it's only 2018.  This isn't a parliamentary system, so Kasich can't force Trump out now, two years before the election.  Trump's term ends in more than two years whether Kasich announces now or six months from now.

It's just annoying to hear him go on and on about this but then just sit back and do nothing.

"Trump is not the GOP."
"So does that mean you're going to run for President, become a large figure who opposes Trump, and push voters in your direction?"
"I have no plans yet."

Does the same logic apply to the Dems who're presumed to be prepping for 2020?  E.g., "Why doesn't Martin O'Malley just announce his candidacy already?"  Or does it only matter for the potential Republican candidates?

O'Malley and other Democrats aren't talking about primarying an incumbent.

I just don't understand why primarying an incumbent means that you have to announce two years in advance while running in an open race doesn't.  Where did this rule come from?

[Mr. Morden]

Oh, grow a pair and announce your primary challenge already!

Then run already.

This seems like a weird reaction, given that it's only 2018.  This isn't a parliamentary system, so Kasich can't force Trump out now, two years before the election.  Trump's term ends in more than two years whether Kasich announces now or six months from now.

It's just annoying to hear him go on and on about this but then just sit back and do nothing.

"Trump is not the GOP."
"So does that mean you're going to run for President, become a large figure who opposes Trump, and push voters in your direction?"
"I have no plans yet."

Does the same logic apply to the Dems who're presumed to be prepping for 2020?  E.g., "Why doesn't Martin O'Malley just announce his candidacy already?"  Or does it only matter for the potential Republican candidates?

O'Malley and other Democrats aren't talking about primarying an incumbent.

I just don't understand why primarying an incumbent means that you have to announce two years in advance while running in an open race doesn't.  Where did this rule come from?

It's very unwritten and based on the need for a candidate primarying an incumbent President to get attention.

I just think you're being ridiculous here (no offense  ).  Kasich will get tons of attention if he actually runs in the 2020 primary against Trump.  Any incumbent president getting a primary challenger capable of getting on the ballot in more than a handful of states is going to be a huge story.

[Mr. Morden]

The “Trump isn’t the true GOP” talking point always makes me roll my eyes. The party is whatever the base says it is, and they overwhelmingly approve of Trump, so yes, Trump is now the embodiment of the Republican Party. If truly a majority of Republicans really wanted to change the direction of the party, they could, but they clearly are not planning to do so.

Sure, but there are two mutually exclusive explanations for why "Trump is now the embodiment of the Republican Party".  One is that Republican voters support "Trump-ism" because they believe in it independently of whether Trump himself espouses it or not.  In that case, then there's no going back.  The party will remain Trumpy (and at odds with Kasich's vision for the party) even after Trump departs the scene.

The other is that GOP voters will support whatever policies are espoused by whoever is leading the party at the present moment.  Trump happened to win the nomination (with plurality support in a divided field) and became the current standard bearer, but if a different combination of candidates had run last time, then we might have gotten President Rubio or someone else who is Rubio-like.  And in that alternate world, GOP voters like Rubio as much as they like Trump in this one.  If *that's* the case, then Kasich just needs to wait until Trump leaves office, and then potentially some un-Trumpy GOP candidate would become the new standard bearer for the party, and it would be defined by that new person.  It wouldn't be the case that party is at its roots hostile to Kasich.  It would just be that Kasich has a personality conflict with the person who currently happens to occupy the White House and has an (R) by his name.

[Mr. Morden]

Dems want Kasich to run a kamikaze mission against Trump, either as a 3rd party candidate or as a primary challenger.  Kasich would not prevail in either of these contests, but he'd aid the Democrats greatly if he did.

I have doubts about that on both counts.  I don't know that a Kasich primary run would actually hurt Trump at all in the GE.  It might actually help him.  Trump benefits from the perception that "the establishment" is out to get him, and that he himself isn't really the establishment (despite the fact that he's the sitting president of the United States).  So if an establishmentarian figure like Kasich is Trump's main primary rival, then that feeds that narrative.  It could actually help him to have Kasich to beat up on in the primaries.  (In contrast, I think if Trump was challenged by another outsider in the primaries, *that* could be damaging to him.)

And as for a 3rd party run by Kasich....I don't know that he'd do any better than Gary Johnson 2016.  And he could very well draw from the Romney-Clinton pool at least as much as he's drawing votes from people who might otherwise vote Trump.

[Mr. Morden]

Dems want Kasich to run a kamikaze mission against Trump, either as a 3rd party candidate or as a primary challenger.  Kasich would not prevail in either of these contests, but he'd aid the Democrats greatly if he did.

I have doubts about that on both counts.  I don't know that a Kasich primary run would actually hurt Trump at all in the GE.  It might actually help him.  Trump benefits from the perception that "the establishment" is out to get him, and that he himself isn't really the establishment (despite the fact that he's the sitting president of the United States).  So if an establishmentarian figure like Kasich is Trump's main primary rival, then that feeds that narrative.  It could actually help him to have Kasich to beat up on in the primaries.  (In contrast, I think if Trump was challenged by another outsider in the primaries, *that* could be damaging to him.)

And as for a 3rd party run by Kasich....I don't know that he'd do any better than Gary Johnson 2016.  And he could very well draw from the Romney-Clinton pool at least as much as he's drawing votes from people who might otherwise vote Trump.

Well . . . maybe.

I don't think a viable primary for Kasich would help Trump.  Trump would be aided if he crushed Kasich 4-1 or something like that.

Well, 4-1 seems pretty likely.  Buchanan got 23% of the vote in 1992, to Bush's 73%.  Can Kasich actually do any better than that?  I doubt it.  I mean, sure, there'd be places where he could beat that by quite a bit, like New Hampshire, Utah, DC, Puerto Rico, etc.  But would Kasich actually break 25% of the vote nationally?  I don't see it.