Monday Open Thread [7.20.15]

First Read: “In a normal world of politics and for a normal political candidate, this would be a tipping point: As the party abandons Trump, so would GOP primary voters. But this isn’t a normal time in American politics, and Donald Trump isn’t your normal political candidate. He’s unpredictable, and that’s the issue. He doesn’t play by conventional rules, so conventional patterns might not apply.”

Rick Klein: “The Trump portion of the 2016 race may be long remembered, though like the birther saga of the last cycle, there will be little of use to reflect upon. In any event, it’s winding down now, or so it would appear, in predictable if not quite painless fashion. What’s undoing Donald Trump’s legitimacy may seem like a typical series of rants. Yet he has shown that even he can go too far: His disparagement of John McCain opened Republican floodgates of criticism – and not because McCain himself remains particularly beloved inside the GOP. This won’t end Trump’s polling strength by itself, if his own history with controversial comments is any guide. But it is all but certain to end a ‘let Trump be Trump’ sentiment among his rivals, borne out of both fear of the Donald and a desire to attract his supporters down the line. Trump will continue to be loud and defiant, but he will cease being relevant long before votes are cast.”

Donald Trump’s “surge in the polls has followed the classic pattern of a media-driven surge. Now it will likely follow the classic pattern of a party-backed decline,” Nate Cohn writes.

“Mr. Trump’s candidacy probably reached an inflection point on Saturday after he essentially criticized John McCain for being captured during the Vietnam War. Republican campaigns and elites quickly moved to condemn his comments — a shift that will probably mark the moment when Trump’s candidacy went from boom to bust.”

“His support will erode as the tone of coverage shifts from publicizing his anti-establishment and anti-immigration views, which have some resonance in the party, to reflecting the chorus of Republican criticism of his most outrageous comments and the more liberal elements of his record.”

Weekly Standard: “Donald Trump confirmed two things during a stop in this central Iowa town Saturday: He has no class and he may well run as an independent when he does not win the Republican nomination.”

Imagine if he does run as an Independent. He would be Perot on Steroids. And he would guarantee a 50-state Hillary sweep. Run Trump Run.

USA Today:

We had hoped to pay no attention to the Trump sideshow. But that became harder to do when he jumped to the top of the recent USA TODAY/Suffolk and Fox News polls of Republican voters. Then, over the weekend, Trump’s big mouth became, not surprisingly, impossible to ignore. […]

Like meteors that flash across the sky and burn out, flawed candidates have a way of self-destructing. That’s one of the few benefits of our endless, grueling presidential campaigns.

The classless attack on McCain might or might not turn out to mark the end of Trump’s presidential ambitions. This much is assured: The mouth will keep moving, and one day it will open wide and swallow his candidacy whole.

I will be curious to see if Trump’s attack on John McCain this Saturday (which by the way was just like the entire Republican Party’s attack on John Kerry in 2004, so it is ok to attack a veteran and question his service so long as that veteran is a Democrat) affects his poll standing at all. Right now, Trump still leads.

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY–Fox News: Trump 18, Walker, 15, Bush 14, Paul 8, Rubio 7, Carson 6. Everyone else is 5% or below.

“The $38 million super PAC supporting Ted Cruz plans to highlight polarizing issues as part of a full-throttle plan to turn out the white evangelical voters that can power him to victory, a new document reveals,” CNN reports.

“The presentation, seemingly written to appeal to donors, syncs with much of the pitch that Cruz himself makes on the stump: that Republicans have their best chance of winning the White House if they nominate a clear-eyed conservative who can turn out the GOP base. But the presentation makes the fullest case yet for how Cruz’s allies believe he has a path both to win the Republican nomination and then to defeat Hillary Clinton, who is mentioned by name in the presentation.”

Good. Wedge issues no longer work for the GOP. They work for us. So please proceed, Senator.

Politico: “As it turns out, the Trump coalition looks a lot like the rest of the Republican Party. Other than a spike in support in the Northeast, there is little in recent polling data to distinguish Trump’s supporters from the heart of the GOP primary electorate. Even immigration hardliners support him at the same rate as the rest of the Republican Party.”

Charlie Cook: “It’s still a great question how this Republican nomination race will sort out once this Trump nonsense ends. The GOP splits roughly 60-40 these days: 60 percent of its voters are pretty conventional, mainstream Republicans, while the other 40 percent are of a somewhat more exotic variety, up from just a third a decade ago. This latter group is made up of three subgroups: secular, anti-establishment, tea-party adherents; evangelical conservatives driven chiefly by cultural issues; and those who are just really conservative and more ideologically driven than your normal garden-variety Republicans.”

“Historically, this collection of less-conventional Republicans has loomed large in Iowa, then gradually given way to more-mainstream GOP voters in the final stretch, but the harder-edged Republicans have been on the ascendency and may play an even greater role in choosing the nominee this time around than in the past.”