{"id":14485,"date":"2016-05-09T02:31:49","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T02:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14485"},"modified":"2016-05-09T02:31:49","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T02:31:49","slug":"gop-walks-tightrope-with-trump-at-top-of-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14485","title":{"rendered":"GOP walks tightrope with Trump at top of ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

\"Republican<\/a><\/p>\n

You’ve heard the phrase, no doubt, of “a distinction without a difference.”<\/p>\n

How does a politician “support” another politician without “endorsing” that individual?<\/p>\n

This is one of the myriad dilemmas facing Republican pols across the nation as the party gets ready to nominate a certifiable huckster as its next nominee for president of the United States.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2016\/05\/08\/us\/politics\/trump-endorsements-congress-republicans-gop.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news<\/a><\/p>\n

I refer to Donald J. Trump as the huckster.<\/p>\n

Some leading Republican politicians, though, are seeking to hedge their bets in occasionally awkward manners.<\/p>\n

Consider the statement of U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the GOP senator from New Hampshire, who said she can “support” Trump but cannot “endorse” him.<\/p>\n

Ayotte is facing a potentially difficult re-election effort as Democrats likely will send Gov. Jean Shaheen against her. Ayotte can’t take the full plunge by endorsing Trump but, by golly, she’s going to support him.<\/p>\n

A distinction without a difference?<\/p>\n

It looks that way to me.<\/p>\n

Other leading Republicans are walking away from Trump. Still others are offering tepid support. Sure, some have endorsed the hotel mogul and reality TV celebrity; former campaign foes New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who once called Trump “unfit” for the presidency, and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who once called\u00a0Trump a “cancer on conservatism” have endorsed him.<\/p>\n

It’s the Ayotte caveat, though, that I find most intriguing.<\/p>\n

I’ve been watching politics for nearly 40 years. I studied political science in college. I became engaged in the presidential election process starting around 1968, when I shook Sen. Robert Kennedy’s hand at a chance meeting one week before an assassin robbed us all of a chance to see if RFK could be elected president.<\/p>\n

This truly is the first time I’ve witnessed such intraparty<\/em> reticence to clutch the coattails of the presumed party presidential nominee.<\/p>\n

But it’s there. It’s real.<\/p>\n

Sure, Trump has appealed to millions of Americans who claim to be “angry” with politics as usual. This clown “tells it like it is,” supporters tell us, while\u00a0they ignore — or laugh off —\u00a0the abject crassness of his rhetoric and the tastelessness of his insults.<\/p>\n

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, another former primary campaign foe, said it well: \u201cI just really believe that the Republican Party has been conned here, and this guy is not a reliable conservative Republican.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just today, on “Meet the Press,” Trump said he would\u00a0consider raising\u00a0taxes on wealthy Americans, which by my way of thinking runs utterly counter to standard Republican Party tax principles.<\/p>\n

This is the problem facing Republicans across the country as they ponder their own political futures. How do they run with someone who says whatever pops into his head?<\/p>\n

Or do they seek to split hairs as finely as they can by “supporting” him without “endorsing” him?<\/p>\n

It is tough to be a Republican these days.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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You’ve heard the phrase, no doubt, of “a distinction without a difference.” How does a politician “support” another politician without “endorsing” that individual? This is one of the myriad dilemmas facing Republican pols across the nation as the party gets ready to nominate a certifiable huckster as its next nominee for president of the United … Continue reading GOP walks tightrope with Trump at top of ballot<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[965,1424,1941,2647,2798,3930,3951],"class_list":["post-14485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-chris-christie","tag-donald-trump","tag-gop","tag-kelly-ayotte","tag-lindsey-graham","tag-rfk","tag-rick-perry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14485"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14490,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14485\/revisions\/14490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}