Republican White House race moves into uncharted territory

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

Something unprecedented is going to happen in the Republican presidential race next year. That's not a prediction of a specific outcome, but a statement of fact about the options available.

 

The modern Republican primary process has never produced a nominee like Donald Trump, or for that matter Ben Carson or Carly Fiorina. When I wrote my Washington Examiner magazine piece outlining how several GOP candidates could win the nomination and beat the eventual Democratic nominee, I didn't even include a path to victory for any of these three. I did include the recently departed Scott Walker. (For what it's worth, I also had Hillary Clinton as the Democrats' candidate.)

 

Republicans haven't nominated a businessman with little political experience since 1940, when the party turned to Wendell Willkie. You can stretch to draw comparisons between Willkie and Trump. Willkie had a history of supporting Democrats. He channeled some of the frustrations of the anti-New Deal right, but was to its left on many substantive policy issues and actually supported many of Franklin D. Roosevelt's expansions of government.