| Happy St. Patrick's Day. To mark the occasion: here's an analysis of the Irish vote this year. He likes his odds right now. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman) The Stop Trump movement is in dire need of a little luck. Today, a little more than five weeks after Donald Trump's first primary season win, conservatives met to talk about deciding on a plan to stop him. Eventually. We already know a bit about what that effort will look like over the next few weeks. Super PACs and outside groups are still hitting Trump on the airwaves; the Club for Growth attack ad tying Trump to Obamacare launched in Utah today, ahead of the Tuesday primary there. And the top priority is limiting the number of delegates Trump accumulates, so he doesn't reach the 1,237 majority before Cleveland. Nearly as important as the question of how many delegates each candidate accumulates may be who those delegates are; as the season of state conventions heats up, it's clear the Republican delegate selection process is likely to get Ron Paul 2012 levels of attention from just about everyone involved. But what's been less clear is exactly what a convention fight might look like; whether everyone who wants to stop Trump can unify behind both a candidate and a strategy for getting that candidate nominated; and, if all convention strategies fall short, what comes next. "A secretive group of Republican operatives and conservative leaders convened Thursday morning for more than three hours to discuss ways to unite the right against Donald Trump, with a presentation about the feasibility of mounting a third-party challenge as well as extensive deliberations about whether a coalition of anti-Trump forces could prevent the billionaire mogul from securing the party's presidential nomination at the July convention in Cleveland," reports Robert Costa. "'It's certainly not too late,' Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) said as he left the session. 'You could get another party on the ballot. If you did that, you'd need a movement conservative to be the candidate. ...'" The breakfast meeting in D.C. -- which included members of Congress and GOP operatives -- was hosted by longtime conservative activists Bill Wichterman and Bob Fischer, along with radio host Erick Erickson, who joined the group by phone, and later released a joint statement that kept the focus on the convention fight. Mostly. ....We call for a unity ticket that unites the Republican Party. If that unity ticket is unable to get 1,237 delegates prior to the convention, we recognize that it took Abraham Lincoln three ballots at the Republican convention in 1860 to become the party’s nominee and if it is good enough for Lincoln, that process should be good enough for all the candidates without threats of riots. We encourage all former Republican candidates not currently supporting Trump to unite against him and encourage all candidates to hold their delegates on the first ballot. Lastly, we intend to keep our options open as to other avenues to oppose Donald Trump. Our multiple decades of work in the conservative movement for free markets, limited government, national defense, religious liberty, life, and marriage are about ideas, not necessarily parties. Newt Gingrich doesn't like what he's seeing: (Paul Ryan continues to deny he would let his name be placed in consideration as a Trump challenger at the convention; of course, as convention chair, any public willingness along those lines right now might make for an...awkward couple of months.) If the convention results in GOP nominee Donald Trump, and some conservatives look to defeat him, who would agree to run outside the Republican Party structure -- and is there even a remote possibility that person could pull enough support to be even remotely viable as a fall contender? #NeverTrump doesn't just need the answer to that question, and a concrete plan -- they'll need to have the infrastructure in place to make it a reality. And they need to have it ready to go roughly four months from today. At this point, the movement is united on stopping Trump -- not on who they'd prefer at the top of the ticket. Marco Rubio, back on the Hill today, said he thought there was still time to stop Trump, but didn't say whether John Kasich or Ted Cruz were the men to stop him, or whether he'd be heading back out on the trail to push for either, or both. But another Hill lawmaker did pick a candidate -- and if the GOP establishment is in hell right now, it was hit with a deep freeze today, as Lindsey Graham backed Ted Cruz, becoming just the second of Cruz's Senate colleagues to endorse him. The same Lindsey Graham who has been so publicly critical of Cruz that the Trump campaign could make some brutal attack ads out of a quick montage. The Lindsey Graham who joked Ted Cruz was so unlikable, you could kill him and face no consequences. The same Lindsey Graham who said deciding between Trump and Cruz was like deciding between being "shot or poisoned." Today, he opted for the poison; he'll even be fundraising for Cruz. Of course, it wasn't the most ringing of endorsements. “I prefer John Kasich; Cruz is not my first pick by any choice,” the South Carolina senator said today. “But I don’t see how John Kasich can mount the opposition that Ted Cruz can to stop Donald Trump from getting 1,237 [delegates.]" (Not that the former Jeb Bush backer loves Kasich either. He does not.) #TBT! Here are some of Lindsey Graham's earlier assessments of Ted Cruz. For instance, let's journey all the way back to...last month:
Many Republican leaders are hoping to extend their primary season as long as humanly possible. The leader of the Democratic Party reportedly wants to see their process end sooner rather than later. Not that President Obama is saying that in public. But the president is growing increasingly vocal about, and involved in, the 2016 campaign, reports Juliet Eilperin: "Obama and his top aides have been strategizing for weeks about how they can reprise his successful 2008 and 2012 approaches to help elect a Democrat to replace him. ...[and he] has begun making his case to the Democratic Party’s most dedicated financial backers. “'My main message to Democrats over the course of the next several months — I’m sure I’ll be saying, ‘Write checks,’ because that’s part of the process — but what I’m really going to be saying to people is, ‘Keep your eyes on the prize here,’' he said at the DNC fundraiser in Austin." The president plans to hit the trail for the Democratic nominee eventually, say his aides. But he's already been taking more and more shots -- some subtle, others overt -- at the man they may face in the fall. “In America, there aren’t laws that say that we have to be nice to each other, or courteous, or treat each other with respect. But there are norms. There are customs,” he said at a St. Patrick's Day lunch today. “The longer that we allow the political rhetoric of late to continue, and the longer that we tacitly accept it, we create a permission structure that allows the animosity in one corner of our politics to infect our broader society. And animosity breeds animosity.” HILLBOUND: Former Republican presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio (L) talks to reporter's while waiting for the Senate's subway to depart after voting on Capitol Hill in Washington March 17, 2016. REUTERS/Gary Cameron It wasn't exactly "you won't have Marco Rubio to kick around anymore," but the Florida senator's comments today about his political future -- at least, the near future -- did have a sort of Nixon '62 vibe to them. “I’m not going to be anybody’s vice president. I’m just not gonna — I’m not interested in being vice president. I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way. I’m not going to be vice president. I’m not running for governor of Florida,” he said. “I’m going to finish out my term in the Senate over the next 10 months. We’re going to work really hard here and we have some things we want to achieve,” the one-term senator said. “And then I’ll be a private citizen in January.” (Just because Rubio's war is over doesn't mean his campaign has stopped fighting, reports Callum Borchers: its communications director continues to criticize a pre-Florida vote report that the senator's team was weighing an early exit.) TODAY IN MEMES: Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are trolling each other with vintage Jim Carrey references, because that's The Way We Campaign Now. (Instagram by Donald Trump) A Bush campaign staffer weighs in on the race: Some whiteboard spin: ("almost")
--Missouri's too-close-to-call Democratic primary has finally been called, making Tuesday night a clean sweep for Clinton. A new poll suggests double-digit leads for both Clinton and Trump in Arizona. --Good news/not-as-good news for Sanders on the Democratic youth vote he's dominated so far this year, reports Aaron Blake. The good news: "On Tuesday, young voters exceeded their 2008 turnout in 4 of the 5 states — in three of those states by large margins." And Sanders is still winning them big. He's just not winning them by the enormous margins he enjoyed during 2016's earliest contests, "where he won their votes 5-to-1 and even 6-to-1. In Florida on Tuesday, it was less than 2-to-1. In the Midwestern states, it was about 4-to-1. And in North Carolina, it was less than 3-to-1." That trend doesn't help erase a delegate deficit. --A group of rabbis called today for a boycott of Trump's AIPAC speech next week, but there are some signs at least one prominent pro-Israel voice may be warming to the mogul: super-donor Sheldon Adelson. --As Trump racks up the wins, foreign diplomats are making field trips to primary states to try to understand voter mood right now, reports Mary Jordan: "The unpredictability we are seeing scares us." --Vladimir Putin's spokesman, on Donald Trump's Instagram ad yesterday featuring the Russian leader: "We assess this negatively." Welp. --OK, California: we know you're not used to the spotlight (at least: not during primary season), but it's almost time for your closeup. "On June 7, more than 350 days after that announcement, voters will go to the polls in Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota -- but people will only be paying attention to the fifth state that's voting, California. In California, 172 [Republican] delegates will be at stake, nearly 14 percent of what a candidate needs in order to gain a majority." --A second member of New York's congressional delegation endorsed Donald Trump today: "Now is the time to unite behind the candidate who I believe will be our nominee, Donald Trump," Rep. Tom Reed (R) said in a statement. "We must move beyond the bombastic rhetoric to positive discussion about creating jobs and improving the lives of all Americans." (The Post's Paul Kane notes that Republicans and Democrats alike "refuse to recognize how many House seats could in play" in the Year of Trump. --Muslim groups criticized Ted Cruz for including the controversial Frank Gaffney and retired Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin on his new list of foreign policy advisers. --Former KKK leader David Duke said comparing Donald Trump to Hitler is great for Hitler: it “might be rehabilitating that fellow with the mustache back there in Germany.” --A reminder this election year: Destroying someone else's presidential campaign sign is a very bad idea (and generally illegal.) Taping yourself destroying someone else's campaign sign is a very, very bad idea. And posting footage you taped of yourself destroying someone else's campaign sign to the Internet...it will not end well. YOUR DAILY TRAIL PIT STOP: Enjoy the rest of the holiday. The fountain is dyed green in honor of St. Patrick's Day at the White House in Washington March 17, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst | 