If frontrunner Donald Trump or currently surging Ted Cruz gets the 2016 Republican presidential nod, it may have a strange sort of bipartisan effect, according to Daily Beast pundit Michael Tomasky. In a Wednesday column, Tomasky asserted that GOP bigwigs “despise” both Cruz and Trump to the extent that they’d “actually prefer” presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to win the general election.
“No one’s ever going to say that publicly,” acknowledged Tomasky. “But half a lifetime of covering these people has taught me a few things about how they think…Intra-party personal hatred is much more visceral than inter-party personal hatred. The prospect of someone they hate in their own party having more power than they have is like the bitterest, foulest bowl of hemlock these people can drink.”
From Tomasky’s piece (bolding added):
Cruz is now running…what you might call the “Donnie Jr.” strategy. Be like Donald, but not as...openly racist. Not as extreme. Differentiate where principle absolutely demands, as Cruz did on the question of religious ID cards for Muslim Americans…But basically, be the acceptable Trump…
…[T]here’s just no way [establishment GOPers are] going to let it come down to Trump vs. Cruz. They despise them both. One’s first reflex is to think well, they’ll just have to find a way to make their peace with Cruz, because Trump is so obviously out of the question.
But on the other hand...remember how much congressional Republicans loathe Cruz. Almost all of his GOP Senate colleagues think he’s a grandstanding demagogue. Most members of the House do, too, except the small cadre that has named him its leader…
They somehow might end up preferring Trump. Which would be really funny, him being an open racist and all. But you know what? Psssst: They’d actually prefer Hillary. Now no one’s ever going to say that publicly of course. But half a lifetime of covering these people has taught me a few things about how they think. And one of those things is this: Intra-party personal hatred is much more visceral than inter-party personal hatred. The prospect of someone they hate in their own party having more power than they have is like the bitterest, foulest bowl of hemlock these people can drink…
So I can guarantee you…that whatever he says publicly, Mitch McConnell would think something like this privately: “Well, okay, I hate seeing Hillary get to make all those Supreme Court appointments. We’ll have to come up with a strategy on that one. But the rest? On foreign policy, she won’t be as bad as the current guy, and it’s far better for us politically to have the Iran deal in place, as it gives us a target. And on the domestic stuff, we’ll bottle her up, she won’t do much damage. I’d much rather that than have to call Ted Fucking Cruz ‘Mr. President’ for eight years!”
We on the other side aren’t supposed to gloat…You just never know what can happen. But come on, it’s really, really hard to see Cruz getting more than about 180 electoral votes.
