We now have a handful of national and state polls out after Thursday night’s Fox/GOP debate. And they all tell the same story: Donald Trump either maintained or expanded his lead in the GOP primary race. Hats off to the sage commentators who predicted this turn of events. But there’s another part of the story that is actually more important for the eventual outcome of the nomination process.
I take it as a given that for any variety of reasons Donald Trump will not be the Republican nominee. So someone else will need to be. But look at the numbers that came after Trump’s. Bush, Walker and possibly Rubio – the candidates who actually represent plausible national candidates – are actually falling as Trump rises. Along with him, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina are moving up.
Along with bogarting all the media attention and upending the issue matrix, the dynamic created by Trump’s entry into the race appears to be gutting the plausible candidates and strengthening the ones on the fringe.
You might say, “Well, if Trump won’t be the nominee, someone else has to. So Bush and Walker may be down now. But they’ll bounce back again after Trump leaves the stage.”
That could be. Big comebacks are possible. In fact, they happened in 2004 (Kerry) and 2009 (McCain) – two candidates who eventually lost, mind you. But they’re difficult to achieve. And they require a lot of luck. More to the point, there’s reputational damage while you’re down and out that is hard to quantify.
For right now, Jeb Bush is being bested by a buffoon real estate mogul. So is Rubio, Walker and pretty much everyone else. That makes them look weak and something between foolish and ridiculous. And that kind of perception can stick.
We just spent three days in which Republican bigwigs from around the country lined up to predict that Trump was finished. Only he wasn’t finished. Even Fox news now seems to be trying to climb down from its war footing against Trump, promising fair treatment going forward. Who’s in control of this train now? How does the GOP handle a fall in which a man who is a buffoon and virtually embodies everything that has damaged Republicans in recent years marches around the country as the “frontrunner” making fools out of his rivals? How does Jeb Bush or Walker or Rubio, looking to embody a presidential aura, deal with a clown like Trump? Do they try to match him nonsense for nonsense?
Nothing is more damaging in politics than becoming an object of ridicule and perceived impotence. Surely, Trump is making himself an object of ridicule. But only among people who, for him, don’t count. For Jeb Bush in particular but to varying degrees for the other would-be frontrunners this is deeply damaging because it shows them up as weak and ridiculous for being bested by a clown. He has literally crashed the party on every level.
