George Wallace’s primary in 1964 argued for some troubles in a distant future, Eugene McCarthy in 1968 coaxed Bobby Kennedy in, Ronald Reagan had fun in 1976 as did Teddy Kennedy in 1980 dividing their parties… and Pat Buchanan in 1992 demonstrated a leaky support at one end of his electorate…

Even the Republican challenger to Nixon in 1972 had a Republican constituency to it, bad showing notwithstanding.

We can even point to the odd primary battles Obama faced in 2012 against gadfly progressive bloggers and mullet headed felons in some rust belt as showing up with Bernie Sanders versus Hillary Clinton and then slumping forth to Trump… the erosion of a part of the Democratic base.

The question before us:  Does the primary challenge of Bill Weld… matter?  It’s a tough nut to crack, in terms of finding just what his constituency is — because, ultimately, we’re circling back to mostly a campaign against boorishness and a bit of cronyish behavors…

Is Weld running on free trade — ironically setting himself up against just the thing Pat Buchanan (the last major party candidate challenge to an incumbent that mattered or showed some wobbliness for the incumbent) was running against —

Buchanan sometimes seen as a proto-Trump, his ’92 campaign a show for the future…

The problem with it all is… Trump’s deviations from any Republican Orthodoxy on domestic policy has ended up checked by the Republican Congress critters, and one Mitch McConnell.

Foreign policy hawkishness?  (Never ever talk to North Korea’s depot)  Hell — foreign policy dove-ishness (Rip off the Iranian deal, why do you?)    Maybe…

“Insulting our allies, eroding our military alliances abroad, cozying up to dictators—there’s no limit to the damage that can be done.”

After an odd hic-up on “spending” (sure, and we’ll see if there’s a constituency there) … We’re swerve down to immigration.  I guess bringing us back to Bush 2000 and his attempts (successful) at bringing in Hispanic and Latin Americans to the Republican fold.  Reform ICE or displace it.  Perhaps he can hammer out a policy that the Democrats can pluck up.

“Twenty states do permit . . . crossover voting, which is more than a beachhead. I’m looking forward to the campaign.”

Might any Democrat sneak over and throw their hands up at the odd clown car nature of the Democratic primary and tip up Weld’s number to something symbolically embarrassing?  (Of course, the marker there would be George Wallace in 1964 amongst some Michigan Republicans — and that didn’t count for anything much in the general election.)

Other than that, pulling together the slice of the vanished “Never Trump” Republicans into one tent directed to voting for him will be a “we’ll see”.

Next question: after shaping his politics for a play in Libertarian Party politics… is he shape-shifting a bit more again?  (The good news is drug policy has come to be not horribly determinable… though Trump’s “Jeff Sessions” policy had held up the rearguard pretty well.)

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