http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/03/16/trump-makes-it-hard-for-republicans-to-lie-down.htmlBy Chris Stirewalt Published March 16, 2016 FoxNews.com
TRUMP MAKES IT HARD FOR REPUBLICANS TO LIE DOWN
If things keep going as they are, Donald Trump will not be able to win the Republican nomination outright.
But of course, things will not keep going as they are. Things will either get much better or much worse for Trump in the next five weeks.
Ask Bernie Sanders what happens to movements that do not win. The beating he took Tuesday at the hands of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton shows exactly what happens: movements turn into messages. After showing surprise snap in Michigan last week, Sanders got soaked in Ohio, Florida and North Carolina. He fought Clinton to a tie in Illinois and Missouri, but this thing is over.
Can the same be said of the effort to deny Trump the Republican nomination? Quite possibly.
After his loss in winner-take-all Ohio, Trump needs about 60 percent of all the remaining delegates to reach the 1,237-delegate threshold and win outright. Even after Tuesday’s romp in Florida and wins in North Carolina, Illinois and, it would seem, Missouri, Trump has won 46 percent of the delegates so far.
Trump is in nowhere near as good a position as the Democratic frontrunner, but Trump is closing in on his target. And like past GOP frontrunners, he can count on large-delegate, blue states in the closing weeks to help deliver a win.
The two remaining Republican contenders, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz seem to have very different ideas about the best way to stop Trump. It’s not surprising.
Kasich is mathematically eliminated from contention for an outright victory while Cruz still holds the reediest of chances to get over the top. There is no doubt that the anti-Trump sentiment within the Republican Party, among both moderates and conservatives, is intense. The large numbers of voters Tuesday who said they would consider voting for a third party rather than a Trump or Clinton is evidence enough of that.
But practically speaking, unless that energy is directed into something productive it will dissipate. Cruz has steadily resisted the idea of “strategic voting” and has continued to win a war of attrition against his rivals, other than Trump -- most recently Florida Sen. Marco Rubio -- but Kasich will not be knocked out.
Cruz would instead have to come to an accommodation with Kasich about where they will stand clear of one another’s paths. More likely, Cruz and Kasich will do their own thing and pursue their own agendas.
But the strategy laid out by 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney could still work to deny Trump an outright win and take Trump to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland without a win sewn up.
Trump has a warning, however, for anyone denying him the nomination if he is ahead in delegates.
“I think you’d have riots,” Trump told CNN, “If you disenfranchise those people, and you say, ‘I’m sorry, you’re 100 votes short’… I think you’d have problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen.”
Given the violence we’ve already seen at Trump events, it’s a credible threat for the frontrunner to make. But it’s also exactly the wrong thing for a frontrunner to say. Democrats are falling in line behind Clinton because she is dialing back attacks and bucking up Sanders backers. Trump is warning that his supporters will riot in the streets.
The competing impulses among Republicans seem to be exhausted acquiescence and a terrified fight-or-flight response.
Republicans would obviously love to lay down and stop the fratricidal fighting that may well doom their party and alienate Trump’s populist legions for a lifetime, but when Trump does things like threatening violence, those same Republicans get a jolt of fear.
Any idea that Trump will be housebroken or mainstreamed into the Republican Party is wishful thinking. Trump sees the GOP the way he does its members who have already surrendered to him like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ben Carson. Trump expects Republicans to get in line with him, not him to get in line with them.
If Trump were to just mellow out for a couple of weeks, the GOP would likely lose its will to resist. But as his comments today show, he’s not going to make it easy for them.
[GOP delegate count: Trump 661; Cruz 406; Kasich 142 (1,237 needed to win)]
