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POLITICAL COMMENTARY

Anti-Trump Glee Leaves GOP With Single-digit Candidates

A Commentary By Charles Hurt

To hear the GOP establishment squeal with such glee, you would think there was a fire sale going on down at Brooks Brothers. Or maybe Congress just passed a law making country club dues tax-deductible. Or somebody invented a glow-in-the-dark golf ball.

Finally! A poll released that doesn’t show real estate mogul Donald Trump trouncing the entire field of candidates running for the Republican nomination!

Victory! Vindication! Told you so! Clink the champagne flutes!

“Does my heart good,” one relieved veteran Republican operative gleefully told Politico.

How will Mr. Trump handle such an epic defeat now that he is “trailing” in the polls, the experts ask.

“Trailing,” they say!

And best of all, this devastating poll exposing Mr. Trump’s humiliating demise comes right on the eve of a crucial debate in the swinging city of Boulder in the swing state of Colorado!

Of course, anyone not suffering Stockholm Syndrome who hasn’t been held captive for decades by the liberal media might balk a little at the source of this wonderful news: The New York Times and CBS News.

Seriously. Will Republicans ever learn?

Now lets dig down into these devastating numbers tolling the death knell for Mr. Trump’s wonderfully imaginative and energetic campaign for president.

Ben Carson, according to this national poll of Republican voters, leads the field with 26 percent of the vote.

Funny, I did not realize that The New York Times and CBS News knew any Republicans, but OK.

How, exactly, this is good news for GOP establishment types, I will never entirely understand. I mean, have they listened to what Mr. Carson has to say about them? He is hardly an insider himself. His stunning rise in the polls is all part of the very same vitriolic voter rebuke of establishment Republicans that has fueled Mr. Trump.

But no matter. The establishment’s blinding hatred of Mr. Trump is not logical. He — and the millions of Americans who gravitate to him — are disgusting vulgarians whose only purpose in the political process is to cast votes and write checks to get establishment Republicans elected.

Other than that: Shut up!

That is why the heralding of Mr. Trump’s demise is such good news. So, let’s get back to the poll, brought to us by The New York Times and CBS News.

Trailing far behind Mr. Carson is most of the rest of the field, back in single digits. Every single candidate who could possibly lay any claim whatsoever to the establishment mantle is toiling away at 8 percent or less.

Some of them cannot even break 4 percent. Six of them are getting beaten by “None” and 10 of them are getting clobbered by “Don’t know.”

Three of them are polling so low that they do not even register a number.

So, how does Mr. Trump fare in this devastating poll trumpeting the end of his political career?

Twenty-two points. That’s right, just 4 points behind Mr. Carson, just within the margin of error. And double digits ahead of every single candidate ever peddled by establishment GOPers.

If Republicans think this is something to celebrate, or somehow absolves them of withering judgment by voters, then they are even worse off than we thought.

Charles Hurt can be reached at charleshurt@live.com and on Twitter via @charleshurt.

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