The 2016 political season has broken a lot of old rules but one that still remains a constant is the one that says a few months are an eternity during a campaign.
How many people remember a few short months ago how desperate the Republican Party was to get Donald Trump to pledge to not run a third-party campaign "if" he didn't win the Republican nomination? They feared that scenario more than anything the Democrats could throw at them. So much so that pledges were signed, right hands were raised, ballot laws were changed.
The one thing that didn't happen is Candidate Trump didn't ask the GOP to do likewise. Today, it all seems so absurd.
And yet, never to be outdone with absurdity, the Republican honchos have decided to push the #DumpTrump secret campaign. The genius plan includes redoing the delegate rules for 2016 and replacing TheDonald with a secret candidate deemed worthy by those in the proverbial smoke-filled room.
Is #DumpTrump deja vu all over again? Anybody remember the populist Tea Party movement? Republican establishment types fought pretty hard back then, too.
With all the concerted effort the GOP leaders are putting into "Stop Trump," one wonders how things might be different today if they had put half as much effort into being the "loyal opposition" against the Democrats over the last seven and a half years.
I suppose the Republican leadership has one bit of solace to salve their offended egos. They must be saying to themselves, "well, at least he's not a Tea Partier."
