Saturday, February 16, 2019

posted 2/16/2019 09:41:00 AM by Daniel   0 comments

How quixotic is William Wells quest for the Republican Presidential nomination?

UPDATE (2/11/2020): Bill Weld just got 9% of the vote in today's New Hampshire Republican primary.  That's not much, but it's not a total wipe-out.  My previous theory (below) that he could become Howard Schultz's VP candidate on an independent ticket obviously died when Schultz dropped out early on.  But Mike Bloomberg offers a similar possibility.  Suppose Bernie Sanders wins the Democrat nomination, even though it's obvious that he will lead the Democrats to a Corbyn-level disastrous defeat. Bloomberg could decide to run as an Independent in a last-ditch effort to beat Trump.  There'd be no point in Bloomberg pandering to the far left, since Bernie would have those voters locked up.  Instead, a Republican ex-governor who'd demonstrated his anti-Trump bonafides, was good on social issues, and was mushy enough on gun control, would make a lot of sense as Bloomberg's running mate.



(FIRST POSTED 2/16/2019): A lot of people are wondering what Bill Weld's endgame is, since he can't seriously expect to grab the Republican nomination away from Trump. Let me suggest another possibility: He may be angling to become the Vice-Presidential candidate on Howard Schultz's independent ticket. Weld will have proven his anti-Trump credentials via the Republican primary challenges, while at the same time displaying his independent streak based on his 2016 run as the Libertarian Party's VP nominee. Weld would also bring executive experience to the ticket as a former governor. The only downside is that Schultz and Weld are both old white heterosexual males, but presumable the Democrat ticket will have already locked up those voters who are completely obsessed with identity politics.

Consider that Schultz's transcendent problem is that Trump-haters fear he will just siphon off votes which would otherwise go to the Democrat candidate, thereby assuring Trump's re-election. But with Weld on the ticket, Schultz can plausibly argue that he'll siphon off just as many votes from the right side of the political spectrum, for a neutral (or at least unknown) net effect. Voters can thus vote for Schultz/Weld without feeling too guilty that they are simply enabling the election of the greater evil (whether they consider that Trump or whoever the far-left Democrat turns out to be).

Let's hypothesize that Weld becomes the main Republican challenger to Trump, and that all of the NeverTrump people rally behind him. With a strong assist from the main stream media, Weld could easily pull 10-15% of the vote in several primaries, perhaps even higher in New Hampshire. Then he's in a position to argue that his presence on Schultz's ticket would draw off a significant number of Trump votes, where even a tiny percentage drain could make the difference in battleground states. That argument, while doubtful, would sound plausible to many pundits and prognosticators. So Schultz picks Weld to balance his ticket and diffuse the fears of Democrats, and my prediction is confirmed.