Killing Bogeymen

From the Republican perspective, the two bogeymen in the 2016 presidential race are Donald Trump ("The Carnival-Barking Colossus") and Hillary Clinton ("The Bitch of Benghazi"). The best thing to do is to kill the bogeymen.

Deny Trump the Majority . .

Make sure he doesn't get to 1,237

The first objective of anyone on the Republican side who wants to save Republic and Party is to keep Donald Trump from getting the mathematical majority of delegates before the convention in Cleveland. The second objective is to beat him at the convention.

The big bogeyman fear? That if Trump loses the Republican nomination for president he will become a third-party candidate, and then—the other big bogeyman fear—Hillary wins.

Does Hillary Win in a Three-Party Race?

"Bitch of Benghazi"

There's much to this concern that Hillary Clinton wins in a three party race:

1. That's how we got the Clintons in the White House to begin with. Her husband, Bill, never got as much as half of the vote—helped each time by the presence of a third-party candidate. 
2. She's known to have a solid core of voters who would pull the lever for her even if she shot Bill on live television. That number might be 40+% (which would be enough to pull her husband's trick in 1992).

What if none of this comes to pass? She must first escape indictment for a number of crimes she apparently committed while Secretary of State. Perhaps more predictable, is her continued lackluster performance as a candidate. She just ain't got the pizzazz her husband had. In fact, she's a highly-flawed candidate without strong positions—or convictions, apparently.

She screams. She has major health problems. There's Benghazi and too many other failures and scandals (actual crimes) to count. Even her hubby, who's still around to mess things up, apparently thinks she's gone too far left (in trying to become Bernie-lite) to win in the general.

Is Trump Really a Third-Party Threat?

For Donald Trump to open up a third party third, he'd need to finance it—something he hasn't shown any great willingness to do. He's a businessman. He's probably not as rich as he pretends. He can't just pull the necessary billion dollars from his business "empire" and expect it to motor on smoothly. He almost certainly doesn't have that kind of money sitting around ready to be tapped.

Second, he'd have to build an effective third party almost from scratch. Pretending to be a Republican (and conservative one) and crashing the GOP tent suggests the third-party approach presented too many challenges.

Killy the Bogeymen . .

Republicans need to deal with each challenge as it presents itself, never fearing what might happen next. When the next challenge appears, it's time to man-up and kill the bogeymen.