Mike Pence is Trump's Lap Poodle - Chemotherapy for the GOP

George F. Will: Trump's vile candidacy is chemotherapy for the GOP

Excerpt:

Because Pence looks relatively presidential when standing next to Trump — talk about defining adequacy down — some Republicans want Trump to slink away, allowing Pence to float to the top of the ticket and represent Republicanism resurrected.

This idea ignores a pertinent point: Pence is standing next to Trump. He salivated for the privilege of being Trump's poodle, and he expresses his canine devotion in rhetorical treacle about "this good man." What would a bad man look like to pastor Pence?  ....

Trump should stay atop the ticket, for four reasons.

1. First, he will give the nation the pleasure of seeing him join the one cohort, of the many cohorts he disdains, that he most despises — "losers."
2. Second, by continuing to campaign in the spirit of St. Louis, he can remind the nation of the useful axiom that there is no such thing as rock bottom.
3. Third, by persevering through November 8 he can simplify the GOP's quadrennial exercise of writing its post-campaign autopsy, which this year can be published November 9 in one sentence: "Perhaps it is imprudent to nominate a venomous charlatan."
4. Fourth, Trump is the GOP's chemotherapy, a nauseating but, if carried through to completion, perhaps a curative experience.

Comment: Can the GOP hold the Senate? The House? Looking to 2020

2016 Campaign Issues

Not in order and not complete or fleshed out:

• Reinforce the sanctity of human life: I doubt abortion can be overturned in the near term, but to ignore the barbarism of abortion would be a mistake. Life: from the unborn to the invalid to the elderly ... life matters because men are in the image and likeness of God.
• Immigration reform: This has been kicked down the road for decades. The open border policy is wrong ... but I am against "a wall". I am not a Trumpite on this! 
• A reboot on our middle east policy. The Obama deal with Iran looks to be very bad: An Iran with nukes and missiles would be very bad for our allies and for us.
• Stop (obliterate) ISIS!
• Social security and Medicare reform
• Towards a balanced budget.
• Corporate tax reform (too high ... too complex)
• Personal income tax reform (too complex)
• Real health care reform ... not the unaffordable care act

Donald Trump "is a counterfeit Republican and no conservative"

Donald Trump is a counterfeit Republican

George Will: Excerpt:

In every town large enough to have two traffic lights there is a bar at the back of which sits the local Donald Trump, nursing his fifth beer and innumerable delusions. Because the actual Donald Trump is wealthy, he can turn himself into an unprecedentedly and incorrigibly vulgar presidential candidate. It is his right to use his riches as he pleases. His squalid performance and its coarsening of civic life are costs of freedom that an open society must be prepared to pay. When, however, Trump decided that his next acquisition would be not another casino but the Republican presidential nomination, he tactically and quickly underwent many conversions of convenience (concerning abortion, health care, funding Democrats, etc.). His makeover demonstrates that he is a counterfeit Republican and no conservative.

... Conservatives who flinch from forthrightly marginalizing Trump mistakenly fear alienating a substantial Republican cohort. But the assumption that today's Trumpites are Republicans is unsubstantiated and implausible. Many are no doubt lightly attached to the political process, preferring entertainment to affiliation. They relish their candidate's vituperation and share his aversion to facts. From what GOP faction might Trumpites come? The establishment? Social conservatives?

Comment: First of what I propose to be many posts about the upcoming Republican Presidential field. The above is from George Will and expresses my view. I could not support Trump. Image source.