Will the number of GOP candidate shrink after the next debate? We can only hope it will in order to clear the political waters that voters are trying to wade through even this far out from the 2016 GOP nominating convention.
The ongoing Republican clown convention, as portrayed by the liberal media, has to shrink its membership and most likely will, shortly after the next debate on October 13th in Nevada. Who will drop out is still the mystery, but here are a few observations of mine.
Those candidates in the very low single digits simply cannot continue, as the costs of campaigning mount. Donors of consequence are hardly lining up behind these candidates and small donor amounts won't pay for staff and incidentals to campaigning. And, this doesn't even begin to rise to the level of expenditures necessary to buy television ads, the single most expensive campaign device to get a candidate's name and message out to voters. Some of these candidates, with an early accumulation of funding, may persevere a bit longer, but the betting is that there will be significant dropouts after the polling comes in the week or so following the next debate. Rick Perry already saw the handwriting on the wall and dropped out.
Most of these wanna be's haven't really faced the hard reality of the costs of campaigning and have relied in great part on the debates on Fox, and especially the circus like debate we witnessed on CNN, to gain even a modest national name recognition. In addition many of these wanna be's have also relied on state centric forums put on by state or local Republican Party election committees to gain regional and local name recognition. The majority of these lower tier candidates have essentially been receiving free face time on the nightly news and guest appearances on cable, which are desperate to gin up ratings and viewers in order to raise advertising revenue.
However, do expect to see fewer of these lower tier candidates appearing on cable and network news and talk shows, because they simply are becoming less and less newsworthy to these media outlets. Expect to see these same media outlets self regulating those who will participate in future debates. A winnowing out of candidates is inevitable and the October 13th debate is the next logical point in time and in practical political terms for these lower tier candidates to pull the plug and graciously step aside, all the while declaring that the Republicans have a wonderful lineup of highly qualified candidates remaining in the field.
As much as I dislike the candidacy of Donald Trump, I now see Trump hanging in there for the full ride to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, beginning on July 18th. I think we can agree that the likes of Huckabee, Jindal, Gilmore (who dat?), Graham, Pataki, and Santorum will be the first to go. They just don't have the supporters or the potential to win supporters from any other lower tier candidates that drop out. Can Santorum count on his previous performance in Iowa? I don't think so and that's why I have placed him in this group of potential drop outs.
What is interesting is the middle group of candidates. Christie has some serious money in his campaign treasury, but not any new financial backers to sustain him. Now here is where I think it gets interesting. This is hard for me to say, but I don't believe Rand Paul, Scott Walker and even Ted Cruz will be able to sustain campaigns that are going nowhere in expanding their base of supporters. Cruz in particular seems to be appealing to the Trump supporters and I don't see those diehard Trump supporters sliding over to Cruz.
Jeb Bush, although stuck in neutral in acquiring greater numbers of supporters, has a ton of money and financial backers to keep him going right up to the convention. Jeb does have the burden of running on a very tired Bush brand name, not to mention his rather liberal positions on some of the hotter issues, which are causing conservatives great problems in even mentioning his name, without gagging.
I'm not even certain Dr. Carson can continue on, although currently he is doing well in cultivating campaign funds, especially from the Mom and Pop voters. As nice as Dr. Carson is, he just hasn't developed a message, other than he is an outsider, that makes him a compelling candidate with zero political experience or demonstrated management skills. I do like and respect Dr. Carson's compelling personal story line and I do expect to see Dr. Carson hang in there through at least the early primaries. After that, it's only a guess whether he will remain a viable candidate.
That leaves Carly Fiorina, Marco Rubio and John Kasich. Whether you like or dislike these three candidates, I expect to see them hang around through the primaries. Rubio is polished in his presentations, as is Fiorina. Both have compelling personal stories, with Rubio being the son of hard working immigrants and Fiorina rising to great heights in the world of business from the position of a secretary. The one candidate I can't put my finger on is John Kasich. In a campaign currently dominated by non-political outsiders, Kasich is a long time political insider. He served in Congress for 18 years. He is the sitting governor of a key state that he has managed to turn around. Kasich's downside is that he is viewed, at best, as a moderate, if not somewhat of a liberal Republican in a campaign that is punishing political insiders.
A month from now we should have a better idea of who is in and who is out of the GOP race for the presidential nomination.
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