Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

The Former Guy™ has been making plenty of GOP primary endorsements, demanding that people kiss his cheeto-stained rings in the hope of winning House and Senate seats. Only one problem: Trump is lazy and doesn't care as long as his pick is deferential enough, and sometimes Trump's word is not law to GOP primary voters.

 

Donald Trump's advisers are angry at David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth, for persuading the former president to endorse a losing candidate in the special election for Texas' 6th District.

Why it matters: Susan Wright's defeat Tuesday in a Republican runoff with Navy veteran Jake Ellzey dealt a blow to Trump's aura of invincibility as a Republican kingmaker. It's critical to his 2022 midterm endorsements and continued hold on the GOP. Trump advisers and allies have been ambivalent about the Club's advice and thought he should stay out of this Republican-on-Republican contest. They take the long view and are protective of his successful record — so far — in GOP primary endorsements.

McIntosh did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Axios.

Trump himself disputed the result had dented his power. In a phone call with Axios on Wednesday, the former president conceded McIntosh had pushed him to support Wright but blamed Democrats — not the Club for Growth — for Ellzey's victory. He also said he actually "won" because Wright had bested Ellzey in the initial primary and the runoff came down to two Republicans he liked.

"I think this is the only race we've lost together," Trump said of McIntosh and the Club for Growth, before catching himself mid-sentence on the word "lost."
 

"This is the only race we've ... this is not a loss, again, I don't want to claim it is a loss, this was a win. …The big thing is, we had two very good people running that were both Republicans. That was the win."
 

Trump is notorious for shifting or refusing to accept blame for any failure, whether as a businessman or a politician.
 

The Club for Growth spent more than $1 million on the run-off, making it easily the top outside spender.

Behind the scenes: In private conversations with Trump, McIntosh pushed the former president hard to throw his weight behind Wright. She's the widow of Rep. Ron Wright (R-Texas), whose death from COVID-19 vacated the seat. In these conversations with Trump, McIntosh painted Ellzey as non-conservative and anti-Trump, according to sources familiar with their conversations. 

McIntosh appealed to Trump's vendetta-streak by telling him that the Never-Trumper Bill Kristol had previously donated money to Ellzey (it was a paltry $250 in 2018).McIntosh also mentioned to Trump that Ellzey didn't want to join the Freedom Caucus — a group of ultra-conservative House Republicans who are fervently pro-Trump.

Between the lines: The Wright campaign and the Club for Growth also cited internal polling to reassure Team Trump of Wright's strength. The polling proved to be way off.

 

I don't feel bad, this was a disaster from the start for Trump, and he walked right into it. Remember, we wouldn't even be having this election if Ron Wright hadn't been a complete dumbass and gotten COVID from refusing to wear a mask.

 

It killed him.

 

Even Republicans don't think the person who married someone that stupid deserves his seat.

The French Disconnection, Con't

So it turns out that National Review contributor David French really doesn't want to be president after all, and that his boss Bill Kristol really is the most idiotically wrong pundit on Earth.

Here is a sentence I never thought I’d type: After days of prayer, reflection, and serious study of the possibilities, I am not going to run as an independent candidate for president of the United States.

I gave it serious thought — as a pretty darn obscure lawyer, writer, and veteran — only because we live in historic times. Never before have both parties failed so spectacularly, producing two dishonest, deceitful candidates who should be disqualified from running for town council, much less leader of the free world.

Hillary Clinton lies habitually and changes position on virtually every public issue except for her pro-abortion extremism, and she has a suspicious record of making public decisions that favor donors to the Clinton Foundation. Her signal foreign-policy “achievement” was helping launch a war in Libya that not only cost American lives in Benghazi but also helped transform the nation into ISIS’s latest playpen.

To add to all that, she’s in the middle of an active FBI investigation. If I had handled classified information the way we know she handled classified information, my career would already be over, and the single goal of my life would be persuading the prosecutor to reach a lenient plea bargain.

Donald Trump also lies habitually (sometimes minute by minute), and changes position based on his moods. In one breath he claims to support working men and women, and then with the next breath he threatens to destroy our economy through trade wars or by playing games with the full faith and credit of the United States. He believes an American judge — a man born in Indiana who spent months hiding from drug cartels after they’d put a “hit” on him – can’t rule on a case involving Trump University because the judge’s parents emigrated from Mexico.

His supporters believe it demonstrates “strength” when he mocks the disabled and bullies women. He has attracted an online racist following that viciously attacks his opponents and their families — including my wife and youngest daughter.

Given this reality, it would be tempting to say that when it comes to confronting this national moment, “somebody” stepping up is better than nobody. But somebody is not always better than nobody. I’m on record saying that Mitt Romney could win. I believe others could run and win, and would make excellent presidents.

It's amazing that these National Review clowns can see Trump so clearly for who he is, but have to habitually lie about Hillary Clinton "being investigated by the FBI" when she isn't. The reality is "e-mailgate" was cleared up months ago. Even David French can't help himself.

The false equivalence of "If I handled my classified info the way she did, I'd be in jail" is something I see a lot from the right, and yet none of them batted an eye when the Bushies did the same thing and unlike Hillary failed to produce millions of emails to the FBI, so I don't particularly want to hear it.

Still, David French lasted all of a week or so.  Shame, would have been funny to see him not get a single vote on his own.

Last Call For French's Disconnection

I didn't think it was possible, but Bill Kristol managed to fail so badly he might have pegged the needle on the maximum allowed negative integer and flipped it around positive.

Two Republicans intimately familiar with Bill Kristol’s efforts to recruit an independent presidential candidate to challenge Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have told Bloomberg Politics that the person Kristol has in mind is David French -- whose name the editor of the Weekly Standard floated in the current issue of the magazine.

French is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to the website of National Review, where French is a staff writer, he is a constitutional lawyer, a recipient of the Bronze Star, and an author of several books who lives in Columbia, Tenn., with his wife Nancy and three children.

Reached in Israel late Tuesday afternoon, Kristol declined to comment on his efforts to induce French to run. The two Republicans confirmed that French is open to launching a bid, but that he has not made a final decision. One of the Republicans added that French has not lined up a vice-presidential running mate or significant financial support.

So, David French is a pundit.

A National Review pundit running for President.

A pundit who, as of a week ago, was asking Mitt Romney to run for president.

The American people need the chance to make a better choice. Given the stakes of the election, to simply leave the race to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is to guarantee a terrible presidency marked by incompetence and cronyism. There is just one hope — however slim — of avoiding this national disaster: America needs a third option.

And at this point, Mitt Romney is the only man who combines the integrity, financial resources, name recognition, and broad public support to make a realistic independent run at the presidency. He’s conservative, he’s got an enviable record in business and government, and he’s demonstrated a unique capacity for turning around failing enterprises. Oh, and there’s one other thing: Romney has been proven right.

It's like Kristol went to the National Review staff meeting and said "Hey, do any of you guys want to run for President?" And everyone else backed up a step because David French was checking his phone and playing Angry Birds: Donald Trump Edition. and didn't see, and now you guys he's gonna run for president and stuff.

Sure.  This is going to be great.