Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” veteran political commentators and co-authors of the book “Jack Kemp: The Bleeding-Heart Conservative Who Changed America” Mort Kondracke and Fred Barnes said the current outsider Republican candidates will be “doomed” by the March 1 primary when people begin voting and both Donald Trump or Ben Carson are not electable in a general.
Mike Barnicle asked, “Jack Kemp works for governor Reagan briefly, gets elected to Congress from Buffalo. A tough thing. He gets elected and is very popular and he’s an amiable guy, people like him, he was a smart guy in the house of representatives. Given where the Republican is today, where it’s moved to today, as you’ve both outlined, when in time would Jack Kemp have become an independent or a Democrat?”
Barnes said, “He would not.”
Kondracke added, “Never!”
Barnes continued, “No, himself parents were Republicans. They were hard core Republicans.”
Kondracke said, “What Kemp thought was that when growth is low and incomes are stagnant, demagogues come along and try to divide people, try to base their politics on division, black versus white, rich versus poor. We’re seeing that right now, blaming Mexicans, blaming the Chinese, blaming the Russians, whatever. He would not have gone for that stuff. He was the total antithesis of Donald Trump.”
Co-host Mika Brzezinski asked, “That’s exactly where I wanted to go. I wanted to get both of your takes on the three outsider candidates at least, Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina.”
Kondracke answered, “You know, I still — I know that you guys are doubting this because of the polls but, look, the Republican Party’s history ever since Barry Goldwater and we could be back to Goldwater again, is that they wander through the wilderness and they have a love affair with Pat Buchanan and Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann and they always end up back at their most electable candidate. I don’t think Donald Trump is electable, I don’t think Carson is electable. Maybe Carly Fiorina is electable but I think they’re still going to find their way back to Bush or Rubio.”
Barnes added, “Who would have thought all these outsiders would have done so well. Everybody predicted Trump would have faded a long time ago. Carly Fiorina is a very attractive candidate but she’s now getting attacked by the media. Ben Carson is a nice man without much experience. You just think at some point Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, those people are going to assert themselves and they have national campaigns. Wait until we get to March 1st when there are all those primaries. I think that may be the doom of these candidates that are leading now. ”
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