Readers React: If the GOP wants to win in November, it will nominate John Kasich

To the editor: I’m not sure about the country, but I think the GOP will survive either Donald Trump or yet another lying Clinton presidency. (“What a post-Trump Republican Party might look like,” May 16)

Trump is a Class-A RINO (Republican In Name Only) who has hijacked my party. He is either knowingly or unknowingly working for the Democrats, and I applaud any effort to make sure he loses spectacularly.

Probably the best remedy against another, similar hijacking would be to determine the nomination based on which candidate is highest in the polls rather than who can garner the most delegates. If that were the standard used today, Ohio Gov. John Kasich would most probably be the presumptive candidate, and the GOP would be on track to win in a landslide in November.

Matters of conservative principle could be worked out later.

Patrick M. Dempsey, Granada Hills

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To the editor: GOP reformers say their party hasn’t worked hard enough to push serious conservative solutions. That puts too pretty a face on their behavior.

Mitt Romney implemented essentially the Heritage Foundation’s healthcare plan in Massachusetts when he was governor, but when it was implemented nationwide by a Democratic Congress hoping for bipartisan support, Republicans labeled it “Obamacare” and demonized it for years in order to stir opposition to the president.

If the Republicans had taken credit for the plan, called it “Romneycare” and worked to implement and improve it, we might think conservatives could do something useful. Instead their anti-Obamacare rhetoric and failed attempts to repeal it resulted in Romney’s defeat in 2012 and gave us Trump today.

The GOP would rather have an angry base than a helpful policy. Its whole identity at this point is being the opposition, including to itself.

Linda Kranen, Carlsbad

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