Jason Chaffetz: "I won't defend Trump, i won't endorse Trump but i vote for him"

[Vosem]

It's worth revisiting original Chaffetz's statement unendorsing Trump:

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What a spineless little worm.

My initial response to the Trump video was to support Johnson.  After thinking about it, the video was over 10 years old, and while it didn't reflect well on Trump, the election is, truly, a binary choice, and Hillary is someone who worked to discredit her husband's sexual assault accusers, so it's not like there's this clear moral choice here. 

Of course, if I were a public official, it might have behooved me to not run off at the mouth right away.  Chaffetz has never wanted to back Trump, period, and he thought he had his "out", but I suspect that since then, he's felt the pushback and has had to backtrack.

Chaffetz's district is almost certainly going to give a plurality to McMullin, and if not, McMullin+Clinton are going to easily be well over 60% of the vote. This is Chaffetz being so desperate to support the Republican nominee that he still votes for Trump, in spite of the push from his district to vote against.

[Vosem]

adelson will be gone in a cycle or two and the kochs made clear that they are anti-nationalist, so the mercers are going to become even more important.

Not sure this quite follows -- the Koches are still closer to the median GOP primary voter than the Mercers. Not to mention that Bob Mercer's pro-Trump superPAC raised $25 (no, not missing any zeros) over the last quarter; looks like that project never got off the ground.