EXTRA: Illinois not among those out to plot for Trump’s removal from ballot

It seems that our Republican establishment in Illinois is inclined to go along with the notion of Donald Trump as the GOP nominee for president come the November elections.

RAUNER: Not putting self into Trump trap

Either that, or we have a governor whose idea of “vision” doesn’t extend beyond the notion of undermining organized labor!

FOR BRUCE RAUNER told reporter-types on Monday that he’s inclined to accept whomever the Republican nominating process picks to run for president. The Chicago Sun-Times got Illinois House Minority Leader James Durkin, R-Western Springs, to say the same thing.

Which goes along with Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who may be a party renegade for suggesting that his Senate colleagues be fair in considering Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, for the post. But he’s not about to be a part of a plot to undermine Trump’s chances of winning the presidential nomination at the party’s nominating convention to be held in Cleveland.

It seems the only person in a political leadership position amongst the Republicans who’s not surrendering to the inevitability of Trump as the GOP candidate is state Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont.

Officially, she backs the idea of Ohio Gov. John Kasich as the next U.S. president.

ALTHOUGH I FIND it intriguing that Kasich himself is nowhere as accepting.

Go listen to the recordings available on the Internet for the “Meet the Press” program on NBC, where Kasich on Sunday said there’s no way that Trump gets the nomination.

For Donald Trump to lose nomination now ...

He seems to believe there are too many people who despise the idea of the New York real estate developer using the political party to appease his political ego by running for president. He seems to think the Republican strategy of undermining Trump’s political desires will succeed.

It’s not clear if Kasich thinks he’s going to be the Republican nominee, or if someone else will be.

ALL I KNOW is that if Trump fails now after having prevailed this far, it would be the ultimate in political collapses. Perhaps somewhere up there with the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies team that blew a 6 ½ game lead with only 12 games left in the season.

It certainly seems that Illinois Republicans won’t be a part of any such revolt against Trump.

... would be as weak as '64 Phlllies loss

Perhaps it’s just that Trump managed to win the Republican primary held last week in Illinois – even though he failed to take a true majority. He still got more political support than any of the other candidates with presidential dreams.

Rauner and other Republicans already are in a precarious-enough position in this state. Anything that would stir up resentments that would fracture their supporters is something they most definitely do NOT want to endure.

PARTICULARLY if one is most primarily concerned with getting themselves re-elected, and the presidential post (while most important to some) is nothing more than a political catfight for a level of government outside of their realm of interest.

It may be that the legislators are most concerned with seeing that their GOP caucuses don’t shrink even lower than their current levels – ones that already see them on the wrong end of the “veto proof” majority.

Letting the Trump spat drag them to further levels of irrelevance is the ultimate nightmare come true.

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