http://www.nationalreview.com/node/432443/print A Party at the Abyss
The GOP’s implosion was entirely avoidable, if anyone had read the signs.
By Victor Davis Hanson — March 8, 2016
Well before Donald Trump entered the race, there were lots of warning signs that the Republican party was on the road to perdition.
After the marathon 20 debates of 2012, with the ten or so strange candidates who brawled and embarrassed themselves, there had to be some formula to avoid repeating that mob-like mess. Instead, in 2016 there were 17 candidates and 13 debates along with seven forums. There were supposed to be tweaks and repairs that were designed to avoid the clown-like cavalcade of four years ago, but they apparently only ensured a repetition.
Three of the most experienced candidates, at least in the art of executive governance — Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, and Scott Walker — were among the first to get out. The most experienced government CEOs somehow (or logically?) performed poorly in the raucous debates and lacked the charisma or the money or at least the zealous followers of Cruz, Rubio, and Trump.
Or they had too much pride (or sense) — unlike Carson, Christie, Kasich, and Paul — to insist that they were viable candidates when fairly early on, by most measurements, they were not. How strange that those who would have been more credible candidates saw the writing on the wall and left the field — to those marginalized candidates who had no such qualms and ended up wasting months of their time and ours in splintering the vote, engaging in endless bickering on crowded stages, and ensuring that there were few occasions for any of them to distinguish himself. At some point, someone should confess that Democratic debates further Democratic causes far more than Republican debates help Republican causes.
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