donald trump just proved that you do not need conservative support to win the republican party nomination. that is, donald trump's nomination process victory signals the death of "movement conservatism". he then picks a movement conservative as a running mate, demonstrating that he doesn't understand the significance of his own victory.
what pence does is negate any appeal that trump had to anybody at all. he's been marketing himself as an outsider/maverick type. what pence does is reduce him to a loudmouth, establishment talking piece. it reduces him to rush limbaugh.
mike pence completely destroys the donald trump brand.
or, you can look at it as it probably actually is - trump just sold his startup company to the republican party.
let's hope that some people are taking notice of the real consequence of this process: the reagan revolution is dead. the conservative movement is over. if trump wants to run as reagan, he will lose in a landslide. the party just rejected reagan!
the polling i've seen does not indicate that trump is having trouble holding evangelicals. it indicates he is having trouble holding libertarians, and isn't getting anywhere in the rust belt. if trump's supposed appeal to rust belt voters is his position on trade, pence actually undermines that. i mean, if they wanted the christian right, they'd have voted for it at some point in the last fifty years, right? they haven't. now, in the twilight of the conservative movement, they think they're going to win ohio on abortion? it's stupidity. pence will not reverse the numbers that exist, he will cement them in place.
the only way that trump is going to challenge clinton is if he can find somebody that matches his celebrity appeal, and can bring in libertarians at the same time. don't get me wrong: that's a tough sell. i've suggested jesse ventura would be a good pick. ron paul is in the right neighbourhood.
by picking mike pence, he's making exactly the same mistake that everybody that he beat made. and, i suspect that if somebody were to sort through the situation carefully, they'd see this is not a coincidence. i can almost guarantee you that this decision was made by a republican party insider cruz staffer that moved over after he dropped out.
....meaning that the party may get their nominee, in the end. but, it's tone deaf.
if mike pence is the vp choice, it all but guarantees that hillary wins.
in canada, the magic number is 30%. when you see the conservatives running around 30%, you know they've been reduced to their core of supporters - the type that will never vote for anybody else. it all but guarantees a liberal victory. this number has been determined empirically.
the american system is of course different, but it seems like the magic number that's coming out is 35%. that seems to be their bottoming out, their true-believer base.
trump's goal right now needs to be to get out of that rock bottom, to make the party appealing beyond it's base. pence does not do that. what he does is reassure the base.
besides stupidity, the other reason that this approach is taken is as a concession. it can be openly transparent: we're throwing away this election, and just turning inwards for a good circle jerk. see you in four years...
so, you could argue there's some kind of a poison pill in this - that it's an inside job to take him down. maybe, sure.
i don't think so, though. i think it's legitimate cluelessness, because it so deeply mirrors the tactics that his opponents took - and so deeply reflects establishment republican wisdom.
in a sense, it doesn't matter, though. let's say it's an attempt to take him down from the inside, so they can run a movement candidate in four years. that still indicates that they don't understand what just happened, and what is happening and will keep happening in the country. it's a special type of stupid to think that you can just wait this one out and that the demographic and ideological trends in the united states will suggest that ted cruz or somebody like him will be more competitive in four years.
at some point, the republicans are going to have to emerge from their echo chamber, react to the polling and move away from these hard right candidates that can't generate support. in the mean time, keep an eye on that 35% number. it may be around for a while.