Where have you gone, Gov. Kasich?
The Strib ed. board turns its lonely eyes to you
In an plaintive editorial with the hed In Kasich, the GOP still has a reasonable alternative to Trump, the Strib editorial board pleads with the GOP to reject the front-running and nearly-unstoppable Donald Trump:
There is an alternative [to the vulgar talking yam, as Charlie Pierce calls him, ed.], however — one who would not embarrass his party, who understands the complexities of governing, and who has demonstrated his capacity both for standing his ground and for reaching compromise. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, in a last-ditch bid for survival in this race, campaigned earlier this week on a new slogan: “Fight the darkness.” That’s a good summation of the Republican task at hand. Trump not only would badly tarnish what’s left of the party of Lincoln, he represents a genuine danger to peace at home and good relations abroad.
Sort of glossed over quickly by the editorial board is the fact that Kasich has usually finished at the back of the pack in the GOP state primaries and caucuses so far, and he’s eked out just one win, in his home state of Ohio, where he is the sitting governor.
Let me amend that: not glossed over quickly, but rather ignored.
But it’s a sign of how much Trump scares the Republican establishment, and (perhaps) the journalists who love it that straws are grasped at with straight faces. (Yeah, I know; don’t write in.)
But I don’t think Steve Sack is buying it. I suspect an image of the cartoon above formed in his mind the moment he got wind of the editorial.
And Fight the Darkness? Donald Trump is encouraging the darkness, all right, but there seems like a sizeable contingent at Trump rallies that seems to embrace it, too.
Welcome to the late Weimar Republic.
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