In cryptic tweets and more direct statements from supporters, Donald Trump has increasingly been hinting that he’s open to revisiting his pledge to swear off a third-party bid for the presidency.
Even after signing the Republican National Committee’s “loyalty oath,” Trump has always made clear that his fealty to the GOP was always contingent on being treated fairly by the party. The only problem is that he has claimed for himself the right to define what is fair and what isn’t.
If a former New Hampshire Republican chairman had succeeded in getting Trump thrown off the primary ballot, it would have legitimately constituted unfair treatment. (I believe concern that party leaders would interfere with his state ballot access and try to keep him out of the debates were the primary reasons Trump kept the third-party option on the table initially.)
It’s true that many of Trump’s past statements and some of his current positions contradict the Republican platform, but that’s never been a standard candidates have been held to before. John McCain had broken with the platform on taxes, immigration and campaign finance reform prior to becoming the nominee in 2008.
New Hampshire Republicans repeatedly sent Warren Rudman to the Senate and his voting record was to the left of GOP platforms dating back to 1976. The NRSC also supported Lincoln Chafee’s 2006 bid to hold onto his Senate seat against a conservative primary challenger. By that point Chafee, who was last seen running a failed campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, agreed with the Republican platform on virtually nothing.
Yes, the extent of Trump’s deviationism is unusual (though arguably no worse than Rudman’s and certainly no worse than Chafee’s). But he is the candidate preferred by a plurality of Republican voters in New Hampshire and nationwide. If the sentiment being captured in the polls translates into actual GOP votes for Trump next year, that should have at least as much standing as the little-read handiwork of the RNC platform committees.
But the efforts to boot Trump from the ballot have failed and a possible third-party bid still hangs over the GOP like the sword of Damocles. That’s because Trump seems to define unfairness to include efforts to defeat him in the primaries. (His apparent aversion to competition is responsible for many of his breaks with the Republican platform.)
The billionaire seems especially steamed by a new entity fighting an anti-Trump “guerilla campaign” on behalf of Republican donors and strategists. The thin reed on which he implicates the party as a whole is that this is being run by a GOP consultant who once worked for the Republican National Committee.
That hardly makes the anti-Trump effort an RNC initiative now and GOP consultants don’t always say things that reflect the consensus view of the party. More to the point, the kind of work this group is described as being engaged in is the sort of thing all candidates face in a truly competitive primary process. You could perhaps quibble with the anonymity of the donors, but Trump is uniquely well positioned to counteract any big-money blitz against him.
There’s a big difference between using one’s independence from the party apparatus as leverage over a hostile party leadership and donors class, which is fair game, and being a sore loser — especially before having lost anything.
“Fairness” is an unusual campaign theme for a Republican presidential contender, especially when he is seeking fairness primarily for himself. But Trump is an unusual presidential candidate.
