3 Sentences That Explain Just How Clueless Establishment Republicans Are About 2016

[Purveyor]

The dirty little secret in Republican politics these days is that the longtime pillars of the party — politicians and ex-politicians, major donors and the consultant class — are further removed from the views of the GOP base than at any time in modern memory. They simply do not understand what the heck is happening within and to their party.

John Sununu, a former New Hampshire governor and longtime GOP hand, is one of the few who is willing to admit just how clueless he is about, among other things, the rise of Donald Trump and Ben Carson. Here's what Sununu told the New York Times's Jonathan Martin:

I have no feeling for the electorate anymore. It is not responding the way it used to. Their priorities are so different that if I tried to analyze it I’d be making it up.

Sununu is far from alone in GOP ranks. Think about how most establishment Republicans saw this race playing out: Jeb Bush gets in, raises a ton of money and blows everyone else out of the water. By this point in the year, most of the consultant class would have predicted that Bush would be solidly in first place in most of the early states and simply polishing his policy résumé for the general-election fight to come.

But the truth that Martin exposes via Sununu is that the old ways of doing things in the Republican Party have changed significantly since even George W. Bush was elected in 2000 — running, it's worth noting, essentially the same campaign his younger brother is right now. Strategies — get big (in terms of organization), tout electability and inevitability, keep yourself close enough to the center that you can be viable in a general election — that once were fail-safe just don't work in this electoral environment where the dominant sentiment of voters is anger about everything.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/10/26/3-sentences-that-explain-just-how-clueless-establishment-republicans-are-about-2016/

[LonePirate]

1. Establishment Repubs have had their worst six months ever that didn't include an Obama victory.

They simply have no control over and no understanding of this crazed and extremist base they have collected. I feel no sympathy for them. I simply hope they make the right decision to help fight back against that beast when it threatens to destroy our country.

[GOLGO 13]

2. TRUMP's master plan has them completely confounded.

They simply have no response for him.