A frequent guest on now-cancelled MSNBC program The Ed Show, The Nation’s national affairs correspondent John Nichols appeared on MSNBC Monday afternoon and proclaimed that Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz “is no more attractive to the Republican establishment” than Donald Trump and “maybe less” so since he’d do worse geographically.
Speaking with All In host Chris Hayes and Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney, Nichols began by arguing that Cruz has been merely “a place holder and I know he doesn't like that thought and his supporters actually are deeply committed” but could all go by the wayside (in the event of a contested convention and someone new arises).
“They're impassioned and they're working hard, but the fact of the matter is Cruz is no more attractive to the Republican establishment than Trump is,” Nichols added.
Brushing aside many of the electoral college projects and polls that show a Trump candidacy could lead to states like Mississippi and Utah going blue, Nichols predicted that, for the establishment, Cruz would be worse than Trump:
In fact, maybe less in some ways and he has geographical regions where he is very unlikely to take off and so, what you're really seeing something now is getting very close to 1964 where moderate Republicans wanted to stop Barry Goldwater so they had, you know, Lodge and then they had Rockefeller and then they had Scranton and then they thought about Nixon and they kept popping some alternative up, but at the end of the day, none of it got enough traction[.]
The relevant portion of the transcript from the 3:00 p.m. Eastern hour of MSNBC’s The Place for Politics 2016 on April 18 can be found below.
MSNBC’s The Place for Politics 2016
April 18, 2016
3:13 p.m. Eastern
JOHN NICHOLS: Look, Cruz has always been a place holder and I know he doesn't like that thought and his supporters actually are deeply committed. They're impassioned and they're working hard, but the fact of the matter is Cruz is no more attractive to the Republican establishment than Trump is. In fact, maybe less in some ways and he has geographical regions where he is very unlikely to take off and so, what you're really seeing something now is getting very close to 1964 where moderate Republicans wanted to stop Barry Goldwater so they had, you know, Lodge and then they had Rockefeller and then they had Scranton and then they thought about Nixon and they kept popping some alternative up, but at the end of the day, none of it got enough traction and I think we have to start to acknowledge the reality that Donald Trump could over the next two weeks, get an awfully lot closer to the nomination.
