Sigh...
Another Trump fail.
Trump and his clown posse don't have the popularity to destroy anyone' career.
You would think not, but he
does have access to certain providers of financial support that could be channeled
to an opposition candidate---even one who'd challenge her in a primary if she runs for re-election---at a volume
enough to make it at least a pain in the arse for her to fight off such challenges. Or, if she survives a primary and
the general election race is close, he could refuse to support her, knowing a fair volume of the party apparatus
would follow his lead, and make it an even more difficult haul for her.
He wouldn't exactly be the first president to do such things when it comes to a) perceived political adversaries,
even in his own party; or, b) members of his own party whom he deems insufficient in supporting him. Or, more
coarsely, even a member of his own party whom he thinks doesn't need his help to survive, even if he might
be thinking secretly that such a member is simply not important enough for his support.
To name one such example, hark back to Gordon Allott, a Colorado Republican, in 1972. An incumbent U.S. Senator,
Allott was in a very tight race and his people asked the White House to consider a late-campaign visit by President
Nixon to Colorado.
At the time of the request Allott was slightly below 50 percent in the polls with a large enough pile of undecided
voters in hand. According to an Allott staffer, the White House "assured us" there was secret information that
Allott might win the race by fifteen percentage points, and, anyway, "snow on the ground might hold down the
size of a crowd for a presidential visit, and that might hurt his [the president's] image."
I'll let that staffer take it from here:
But the plain truth is this:
For twenty years Allott had been a supporter of Nixon. For four years he had been an especially loyal supporter
of even President Nixon's dumbest causes---the SST, Judge Carswell. But when it came time for Nixon to do
Allott a favour, all Allott got was an evasive, dishonest, and in the end contemptuous refusal.
The day before the election, Nixon flew across country to vote in California. He made several stops, but none
in Colorado.
In the days after the election the White House, flushed with victory, made clear its lack of sympathy for Allott.
According to the hard-boiled Darwinism in vogue at the White House in November and December 1972, those
politicians who need the help of friends in order to survive deserve neither friends nor survival.
A year ago the reigning philosophy was survival of the fittest, and Mr. Nixon and his agents were feeling
remarkably fit. Today Mr. Nixon has all the friends he has earned and deserves.
Now Mr. Nixon may not survive. He certainly won't be saved by Allott's vote in the Senate. But Allott has more
important things to worry about, like what the trout are hitting up at Electra Lake, north of Durango.
---George F. Will, in "Gordon Allott: Not a Malleable Man," 8 November 1973; republished in The
Pursuit of Happiness and Other Sobering Thoughts. (Will was a staffer for Allott from 1970-73,
after which he became Washington editor of National Review for a spell.)
