Yahoo Columnist
We all had a good laugh at Chris Christie’s expense after the New Hampshire primary, when he decided to get behind Donald Trump in exchange for dibs on an especially comfortable chaise longue at Mar-a-Lago. Next to the kinds of craven endorsements we’re seeing now, though, Christie might be in line for a Profile in Courage award.
Just yesterday, Jeb Bush followed his pal Lindsey Graham by coming out in support of Ted Cruz, although apparently he didn’t think he could get through an actual announcement without falling to his knees and rending his clothes in self-loathing, so he released a tepid statement instead. Bush described Cruz as a “consistent, principled conservative who has demonstrated the ability to appeal to voters,” by which he meant that Cruz is not Trump and that’s all there is to say.
This followed the bizarre contortions of Mitt Romney, whose state-by-state endorsement strategy has been so convoluted that I’d suggest getting a blank NCAA bracket if you really want to keep up.
All of which gets to why this #NeverTrump movement among governing Republicans might more aptly be called #NeverGoingtoHappen instead.
That’s not to say I don’t understand the strategy here, because I do. The singular goal is to keep Trump from amassing the 1,237 delegates he needs to clinch the nomination, thus hurtling the party into an open convention for the first time in 40 years.
Bush has apparently decided that this can happen only if it’s a two-man race, even though he almost certainly believes that John Kasich is the only candidate left who has any business being in the Oval Office. So he and other leading Republicans are going to close ranks around Cruz and hope they can get control of the process once the voters are finished making a holy mess of it.
(It’s interesting that Jeb has not been joined in this cause by his brother George W., who seems to have decided that he would sooner paint Trump’s presidential portrait himself than endorse the fellow Texan who once worked for him. That ought to tell you something.)
Romney’s strategy is more elaborate. Like many of you who probably also assumed you were watching an old “Bewitched” rerun on daytime TV until you realized that Darrin had just way too many lines, I watched Romney’s speech attacking Trump a few weeks back, and I have to say I was impressed. Where Trump was vulgar and insecure, Romney was cutting and confident, reminding us that titans of business don’t hawk bad steaks in late-night infomercials.
It seemed possible that Romney, in his advancing years, had at last found within himself some hidden reserve of political steel.
But no – turns out some distant race of extraterrestrials had actually snatched Romney’s body for a day so they could deliver a message about the grave danger of a Trump presidency, and when they were done they dropped the old Romney right back into our laps.
Romney endorsed Kasich in Ohio, noting that he was the “only guy with a real track record.” But then he turned around and announced he was voting for Cruz in Utah anyway – although he wasn’t actually endorsing Cruz, just so nobody gets confused. Right.
If you step back for a second, you can see why Romney might have some interest in getting to a convention with the delegates divided as many ways as possible. Mitt made his fortune as the consummate turnaround guy — the bloodless analyst who swoops into a company in crisis and fires all the incompetent executives.
What is the Republican Party now if not an organization in crisis? If you were Romney, why wouldn’t you look at the disaster looming and recognize a ripe takeover opportunity?
But here’s the problem for Bush and Romney and the whole #NeverTrump thing generally: You don’t win campaigns solely by running against somebody else. You have to give voters something — or someone — that they can be for.
This, of course, was Romney’s essential flaw as a nominee four years ago. He effectively ran as the #NeverObama candidate, avoiding anything that could have been misconstrued for a declarative worldview or agenda. He thought it was enough to not be Barack Obama and not be objectionable, and he was wrong.
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