Plan C: Third-Party Run A Daunting Task For GOP Establishment

[applegrove]

Plan C: Third-Party Run A Daunting Task For GOP Establishment

by Sam Stein and Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/plan-c-republican-establishment-chattering-about-a-third-party-run_us_57295dcbe4b016f378941d68?utm_hp_ref=politics

"SNIP................


Rest assured, the Donald Trump campaign will offer no shortage of opportunities for grifters. But if you’ve been a charter member of the Washington establishment, your calls probably aren’t getting returned as quickly as you might like, especially if you’ve spent the past half-year typing the #NeverTrump hashtag into your Twitter feed.

But there are also political reasons to run an independent candidate. A traditional conservative on the ballot who could peel a few points away from Trump would virtually assure Hillary Clinton of victory — giving business-minded conservatives who prefer Clinton a way to support her without having to support her directly. As importantly, a third-party conservative candidate could potentially draw in Republican voters disaffected by having Trump on top of the ticket, thereby giving a much-needed boost to down-ballot candidates.

“That would be good,” Tim Miller, Jeb Bush’s former communications director and a leading operative in the Never Trump movement, said of guaranteeing Trump’s loss by running someone else. “To the extent that there is a conservative third-party candidate that would give Republicans who can’t stomach voting for Donald Trump a person to vote for, and conceivably solve the depressed turnout problem, I think there is something to be said to that.”

Sam Geduldig, a former senior aide to John Boehner, is now a lobbyist, and argues that a Clinton victory is not necessarily a worst-case scenario for Republicans. “An independent conservative running could actually help the House and Senate,” he said in an email. “It means Clinton definitely wins, so it could depress Democratic turnout in places like Illinois. So the Trump people help Mark Kirk, the [placeholder] people help Kirk, Democrats might not turn out because Clinton wins (Illinois) easily and we hold the Senate. Then in 2018 there’ll likely be a wave of anti-Hillary energy and we’ll run up huge majorities in her first midterm. Leading to a favorable redistricting process in 2020.”



..................SNIP"

[WhiteTara]

1. What is the filing deadline?

[TM99]

2. There are no viable third party

conservative candidates at this time, and Libertarians will not allow a take-over of their party by one that would be acceptable to the DC GOP elite.

So this ain't going to happen.