"An albatross around the neck" describes the current situation involving Donald Trump and the Republican Party perfectly as he fits the definition of that phrase, "A very heavy, burden that becomes an obstacle to success."
That observation, in fact, is an understatement. The GOP is frustrated by Trump's commanding presence as it wants to continue to move in the direction it has for many years; but Trump has opposite plans to go in an entirely different one.
He has become that very massive obstacle, a "huge" impediment to this party's hopes for successfully recapturing the White House. But how is the GOP ever going to remove this albatross from around its neck?
The leaders of the GOP are apparently very astute and insightful. They know that, while Trump may be the current front runner in this race that, when it comes to the general election and going up against either Clinton or Sanders, highly respected polls continue to show that his chances are not very good. He may have mesmerized a good part of the GOP electorate with his outrageous statements and behavior but the overall American electorate is not buying it.
Two polls released March 21 show that Trump's message and voter appeal do not reach most American voters and that both Sanders and Clinton continue to maintain and even expand their leads over The Donald.
A CNN/ORC poll indicates that if Sanders is the Democratic nominee he would soundly defeat Trump 58 percent to 38 percent--much larger than Hillary's 12-point margin. A newly released CBS/New York Times poll gave Sanders a 15-point margin over Trump, somewhat better than Clinton's 10-point advantage. These are highly respected polling organizations whose findings should be very troubling for Trump and the GOP.
Things can certainly change but it's not likely that this will happen in the 2016 general election because if Trump thinks he can win by insulting those who represent the powerful voting blocs in America, women, Hispanics, African Americans, Asian and Muslim Americans, he better think again; because the vast majority of them will never vote for him.
Here's how Trump is digging himself into a deeper hole every time he opens his mouth. He is clearly showing the American people he doesn't have the temperament and stability to handle the duties and, especially, the tribulations that come with that powerful office. He keeps saying he is not a politician but if he were an experience one he would temper his words and try to be more of a statesman rather than continue to act like some kind of attack dog.
The majority of the American people don't like hearing him proclaim that he would use water boarding and "a whole lot more" on suspected enemies; most are turned off by his call for the creation of a national database to register all Muslims living in the U.S. in order to protect the country against terrorism.
The GOP is in a deep quandary at this point in the Republican primary; its leaders can see the handwriting on the wall. But what to do? Well, they better do something and fast if they are going to replace Trump with a presidential candidate who will toe the line, bend to their dictates and appeal to far more Americans.
Trump may be leading the pack and most likely will become their nominee but the GOP is not giving up and is obviously working very hard to develop some strategy to replace him with one of their hand-picked candidates. Here is an article that reports that GOP leaders recently met at a Washington DC luncheon to discuss various strategies to decide what exactly to do to regain control of this situation.
A CNN byline recently stated: "GOP Conservatives Seek "Unity Candidate to Stop Trump." They can seek that candidate but it won't do them any good unless and until they can find a way to stop Trump's momentum.
Those Republican leaders adamantly opposed to Trump becoming the nominee are preparing a 100-day campaign to deny him the presidential nomination. They will initiate an aggressive campaign to lobby delegates to the convention, beginning the process in Wisconsin's April 5 primary; then move on to the next primary states. They want to portray Trump as a catastrophic choice in the general election. Well, that shows that they are real visionaries.
One strategy that they will most certainly use is to dig deeply into Trump's life over many years and see how many skeletons they can pull out of his various closets. So far nothing like that has happened during this primary contest but it's a safe bet that the process of digging into his past is well underway.
While the organizations of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders may be doing their own digging I doubt that they would even try to present any juicy findings to the American public; at least not right now; they will leave that to the GOP and see it unearths anything. But if they can come up with some kind of sordid or unethical information about Trump, we will, without question, see it produced in the general election.
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