The Insiders Are Dropping, Who Next?

"For a Republican establishment frightened and bewildered by the rise of Donald Trump, Monday's news that Scott Walker would quit the presidential race came as a welcome relief. Walker's exit seems to make it easier for the party's elites to consolidate behind one of the remaining formidable mainstream contenders — generally agreed to be Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio — and stop Trump.

But there's one lingering loose end that should keep the establishment up at night. Namely: with Walker gone, both remaining elite-preferred candidates have big problems with the GOP base on the very issue that propelled Trump to the top of the polls — unauthorized immigration."

Read Vox, With Walker gone, GOP elites have to sell "amnesty" to a base that hates it.

Read also Vox, Jeb Bush should drop out for the good of the Republican Party., which notes that "for months now the Bush campaign has gone nowhere but down. The more people see of Bush, the more they feel 'meh' about him. If he quits now for the good of the party, people will say he was a good man driven by a strong sense of duty and noblesse oblige. If he waits for months as his public support continues to bleed away, he'll be humiliated."

As a reminder, in the beginning there were 17 so-called major candidates: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, George Pataki, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, Scott Walker, and Donald Trump.