And so it ends for the GOP — in Indiana, the heartland, and in May.
Not in a brokered national convention. Not with much drama as it turned out. Just the last two opponents of the businessman who would be president, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, acknowledging that the Stop Trump movement has been, well, stopped in its tracks.
And thus ends Part I of the most improbable political campaign in recent American history by a man who turned his signature brand of provocation against no fewer than 16 rivals for the Republican presidential nomination and came up victorious.
In politics it is often all about the moment, and Donald Trump managed to capture the moment for voters — voters with fears and anxieties about the economy, about the world around them, and about the inability of Washington to do anything about any of that to make their lives better.
In this latest contest the thrice-married Trump even won the votes of more evangelical Christians than Cruz, the pastor’s son.
There may well be some morning-after remorse among any number of folks, especially those who berated the rest of the field as RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), clearing the field for the ultimate RINO himself — a man whose loyalty to the party — and its principles — has always been about as precarious as the next primary.
Principles? Trump don’t need no stinkin’ principles. He’s Trump, right?
And that, in the general election, may be his biggest advantage — especially against one of the most unprincipled Democrats ever to wear that particular label. The unpredictability of the Trump juggernaut will simply drive Hillary Clinton and her well-heeled campaign crazy.
But eventually the name-calling and the hate-mongering, if continued over the course of the next six months, will grow wearying. Angry and fearful voters will begin to look not simply for someone who stokes their fears, but for someone who has answers — answers that amount to more than “trust me, I’m great.”
The Trump campaign Part II will have to provide those answers.
— The Boston Herald,
May 4
