MiddleAgedKen wrote:The plan was for this to be Jeb!'s turn, with Rubio on deck for next time.
I disagree with this. They were both fighting for the same donors - the ones that cared the most about electability / the chamber of commerce types. One thought Jeb's brand name would work, others did not consider any Bush electable this cycle - which is why they decided on Marco early. There was a lot of bad blood between them.
As it was, they kind of split the moderate vote which is part of the reason that Trump had an advantage in the early going. By the time they were both out, the only viable option against Trump was Cruz, and that wing really hates Cruz.
No Trump in the race, it probably comes down to Cruz vs Rubio. I by far prefer Cruz on that, but I could at least hold my nose and vote Rubio.
In the end, the GOP is having our McGovern election. I think there is room to recover (because the people who supported Trump will suddenly all forget that they did) but we do need some structural reform. The Dems did it with super-delegates. That is actually not an unreasonable way to look at it.
I think eliminating open primaries and winner take all primaries would be a good start. Perhaps only giving delegates proportionally to the top 3 or 4 in each state to encourage the bottom tier to drop out early. Also an anti-stalking horse provision such that no one will be allowed in debates if they have a history of supporting Dems (certainly donating to the presumptive Dem nominee would do it).
The current system was designed to split and eliminate conservatives because the establishment types could not imaging a challenge from the left / disaffected side. Well they got it.
