Last night, I was online watching news clips reporting the South Carolina results, and I stopped on a report reflecting on Jeb Bush’s failed campaign. The report featured clips of Donald Trump bullying Jeb on the trail, and especially in the last debate. Jeb didn’t know how to fight back. Actually, he probably did know, but it’s not in his character to stoop to that level.
“Stop playing that,” my wife said. “I don’t want to hear it.”
Is there really an establishment, anti-Trump “lane” of any consequence in the GOP race? I’ve been asking that question for some time, for one simple reason: since Trump’s rise, there have been no strong, center-right establishment candidates in the race.
Trump, Cruz and Carson (and Rand Paul) have been generally understood as anti-establishment candidates whom the political class would be unhappy with. The candidates typically classed as “establishment” or “mainstream” from the beginning were: Bush, Christie, Kasich, Walker, Perry – and Rubio.
James Forsyth comments on Boris Johnson’s support for U.K. withdrawal from the EU:
With Boris and six Cabinet Minister backing Out alongside close to half of the parliamentary party, it is impossible to claim that the Tory party is largely behind this deal. This will have a knock on effect on Tory voters. Another consequence of the fact that Boris and Michael Gove are both backing Out is that businessmen, celebrities and donors will feel free to back leaving the EU without it looking like a UKIP endorsement.
Yesterday, when we summarized the statements by UK politicians regarding the June 23 EU referendum, we said the one most important opinion has yet to come: that of London mayor Boris Johnson's whose "opinion may sway the vote one way or another in four months. As the Telegraph reproted that "David Cameron is mounting a last-ditch effort to woo Boris Johnson to back his campaign to stay in the European Union, by drawing up plans for a new constitutional settlement that puts the sovereignty of British institutions beyond doubt."
Michael Brendan Dougherty considers Rubio’s chances after South Carolina:
The Florida senator will have a chance to put together the anti-Trump coalition. Many powerful people in the conservative movement and the Republican establishment desperately want him as their nominee [bold mine-DL]. That counts for a lot.