Prospects of a Contested Convention in a Trumpless primary

[Lechasseur]

I don't think there would have been a contested convention. I think without Trump, Walker would win the nomination because he would have been about the only candidate who I think would have gotten significant support from both the Establishment and the populist/Tea Party types. The only reason I'd have any doubt about this is because Walker doesn't have much charisma (but when you get down to it, except maybe for Trump, none of the serious contenders for the nomination did). Well that's my prediction, with or without a contested convention, I think the GOP nominee would have been Scott Walker. And I could see him going on to defeat Clinton in November (minus Michigan).

[Lechasseur]

I don't think there would have been a contested convention. I think without Trump, Walker would win the nomination because he would have been about the only candidate who I think would have gotten significant support from both the Establishment and the populist/Tea Party types. The only reason I'd have any doubt about this is because Walker doesn't have much charisma (but when you get down to it, except maybe for Trump, none of the serious contenders for the nomination did). Well that's my prediction, with or without a contested convention, I think the GOP nominee would have been Scott Walker. And I could see him going on to defeat Clinton in November (minus Michigan).

The problem is as you say, you have doubts. In such in an event, at a convention, Walker's rivals may have been able to pool their delegates together for a joint ticket to usurp Walker, such as the Cruz & Jeb example I mentioned above. Walker would take the bulk of the 'populist' type vote, but if a Jeb/Kasich-type took on a sizable portion of the moderate vote, that might've hampered Walker's prospects going into a contested convention. Walker likely would've been a major player, but the danger for him is that he wouldn't be the only major player.

Imagine it's mainly a Jeb/Kasich v. Walker v. Cruz, instead of a one-on-one, Walker would beat Cruz for the reasons you mention (establishment friendly) in a one-on-one, but in the likely event that it wouldn't be a one-on-one, pressure would've been put on Walker's campaign.

That's true, but at that point there may have been a compromise candidate, I have a hard time seeing Bush being acceptable to populists or vice versa for Cruz, at anyrate I think if either of those two got the nomination they'd probably lose in November.

[Lechasseur]

I never understood why the Establishment backed Jeb! so much. Not nearly as much as Romney, but he was the clear Establishment favorite. The "Romney" of 2016.

With Romney, he at least ran a national campaign just 4 years earlier, and was relevant from 2009-2011 in terms of the "fight" against Obama.

Not only that, but he was the runner-up and the runner-ups always get a second chance in the GOP. Romney also got lucky and ran against a bunch of clowns as well. I like Ron Paul but he's just not a national candidate, and Santorum focused way too much on social issues.

However, it should have been clear that despite the clown car, the success of random candidates (Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich, etc. etc.) showed that the GOP base DIDN'T want a typical establishment nominee. They eventually were forced to settle on Romney, but only after everything else had been tried.

So my question is why the hell did the Establishment not only double down, but select JEB BUSH of all people?

- The Bush name is toxic
- As Establishment as Romney was, a Bush makes him look like a full blown outsider
- Jeb Bush did nothing but insult GOP primary voters
- They gave him literally $130 million and they were clearly expecting Jeb! to buy his way into the nomination/Presidency
- He did NOTHING for the 8 years Obama was President. He campaigned a little bit in 2014 to set up for 2016, and he did some speech about education in 2012 but other than that he was gone. He wasn't there for the fight against Obama and he just shows up expecting a semi-coronation?
- He hasn't had a campaign since 2002, and never a national one. It was clear he was super rusty in 2016

It's just so insulting they ran him. What did they expect? They were so arrogant to think they could just buy the nomination. They didn't even want to fight for it in 2016 like they did in 2012. Funnily enough they made Florida winner-take-all in order to make it easy for Jeb! to win the nomination, but instead backfired on them and helped accelerate Trump's path. Glorious!

Should've backed Rubio, but I think Rubio has some dirt on him.

The whole GOP autospy was inspired by Jeb's political model. Jeb basically built the GOP's Latino outreach strategy & he also built up the FL GOP. RNC made a collective decision after 2012 to outreach to Latinos w/ Gang of 8, which obviously failed. Jeb had plans to run in 2016 since 2009, Rubio was actually a Jeb loyalist back then and Jeb was offered Martinez's seat, Jeb built up Rubio's career and assumed that a loyalist placeholder would be taking over that seat; had Jeb known Rubio was going to run, he never would've let Rubio take it.

Donors in general like experienced governors with track records who have delivered on their results, that's why Mccain was always on shaky ground, most of the establishment tacitly backed Romney early on in '07/'08, but Mccain was able to use his 'maverick' status to his advantage.

Romney had the advantage of being the founder of Bain Capital; donors were easily able to level with him. Romney was also exploring another run, until Jeb formally announced.

Could you imagine Rubio in a meeting with high-profile donors? He would be regurgitating overly simplistic memorized lines in response to serious detailed questions, which from their perspective would reflect a lack of professionalism, experience, qualification and respect. Rubio isn't on the intellectual caliber of the donors, he is also slightly more socially conservative than they would like. So, Jeb had the latino outreach card combined with experience combined with their preferred level of moderation.

Yeah I agree with your analysis.

Also, people should keep the context in mind- George W. Bush  had an 88% approval rating amongst republicans right before Jeb launched.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/03/politics/george-w-bush-favorability-ratings/index.html

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2015/images/06/02/obama,.economy.poll.pdf

Trump used third party style attacks against Jeb which a normal republican wouldn't have been able to utilize, such as Trump's attacks on Bush for 9/11.

That's true, Trump managed to lower George W. Bush's approval rating with Republicans but I don't think that's what wrecked Jeb's campaign; I think what doomed Jeb was his position on immigration. Had Jeb's views on immigration been more in line with those of Republican voters he would almost certainly have been the nominee (even had he been at the same level as Romney on the question, but supporting full blown amnesty wasn't going to cut it).

The irony is I remember at the time I thought Jeb would have been the most electable establishment candidate but in hindsight I think Romney would have been their best bet out of ''pure'' establishment candidates. I think Romney could have won against Clinton (but it would have still been risky to run him again), not convinced for Rubio but it would still be possible but Jeb would have almost certainly lost.

I still think the establishment's best bet would have been Scott Walker, despite his flaws, he was friendly to the establishment but had appeal to the populist wing of the party, and it should have been clear that no establishment candidate who didn't have some populist appeal of some sort wasn't going to have problems in terms of electability.