The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Is there no stopping his momentum now?
Trumps proves Republican establishment can’t stop him after win in New Hampshire primary.
CONCORD, N.H. >> The current and former chiefs of the state Republican Party condemned him. New Hampshire’s only two Republican members of Congress refused to endorse him. The conser vative owner of the state’s largest newspaper called him “a con man” on the front page.
Donald Trump won anyway — big time.
So, too, did Bernie Sanders, who will leave New Hampshire with the commanding v ic tor y one might expect of a front-runner blessed with the near universal favor of his party. Except all that establishment support belongs to Hillary Clinton.
Trump’s 18-point victor y and the self-described democratic socialist’s 21-point win are reminders of the limits of party power in an age of anger toward Washington and frustration with politics.
Many Republican Party leaders may be terrified by Trump’s ascen- dance, but have yet to divine a way to stop the billionaire real estate mogul. Clinton may have all the endorsements of her party’s boldfaced names, but it is Sanders who is winning over the young people and independents who helped push Barack Obama to the White House.
On Tuesday, establishment-minded Republicans from New Hampshire expressed a mix of frustration and shame that it was their state that delivered Trump’s first victory. “I refuse to support him under any circumstance,” said Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire Republic an Par t y chairman. “Trump would be a disaster.”
Cullen likened Trump to Pat Buchanan in 1996, the divisive former Nixon aide and conservative commentator who also won the New Hampshire primar y. GOP leaders quickly coalesced behind mainstream alternative Bob Dole, the former Republican Senate leader who went on win the nomination.
It wasn’t because they loved Dole, Cullen said, but because they feared Buchannan would embarrass the Republican Party.
“The party was able to stop Buchannan 20 years ago,” Cullen said. “Today, they’re incapable of doing it.”
For those like Cullen who oppose Trump, it only gets worse.
Marco Rubio’s under whelming performance in New Hampshire eliminates the prospect the Florida senator might emerge as the Republican establishment’s favored alternative as the race heads into South Carolina and the Super Tuesday states.
Competing for the support of the same group of Republicans, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Rubio won enough votes combined to handily beat Trump. But as they fought among themselves — four political insiders against the lone outsider — Trump won with ease.
John Jordan, a California winery owner who runs an outside group backing Rubio, said that “candidate log jam is all going to break in one night,” and suggested that night will be March 15, when Florida is among the states to hold their presidential primaries.
“One of them will do better than the other, and it will be impossible for the relative loser to make the case to donors that he should continue,” he said, referring to the state’s native sons, Bush and Rubio. “Donors will simply move to whoever wins that state, and it will happen nearly instantly.”
But between now and March 15 is South Carolina, Nevada and the more than a dozen states that vote on March 1 — time that Trump, and Sen. Ted Cruz, can use to further their edge. Despite questions about the strength of his ground game, Trump continues to hold a commanding lead in many preference polls in the South’s first primary — and he could get a bump from his New Hampshire success.
Sanders may, too, but he has much further to climb as Democratic race moves ahead.