ICYMI: For the GOP now, all roads lead to Donald Trump [CNN]

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

CNN: For the GOP now, all roads lead to Donald Trump
By Gloria Borger
November 18, 2021

Key Points: 

• Given what’s going on with Trump’s heavy footprint in GOP primaries…his vetting process seems to revolve around a central question: Who likes me the most? Personal vulnerabilities be damned.

• There are two Trump-endorsed Senate candidates who have been accused of domestic abuse: In Pennsylvania, the party’s front-runner, Sean Parnell, has been accused by his estranged wife of choking her and hitting one of their children — charges he denies. 

• And in Georgia, Trump’s buddy Herschel Walker had to answer questions about his ex-wife’s accusation that he had held a gun to her head. 

• A Walker candidacy is not exactly what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had in mind, but now Walker has his blessing. Go figure.

• There’s one wannabe senator with sexual misconduct allegations against him who is still vying for the Trump thumbs-up: former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, […] resigned the governorship in 2018 after revelations of an affair with a woman who accused him of sexual misconduct and threats of blackmail. 

• The list of potential problems goes on: … GOP candidates in Arizona are still talking rigged election to make Trump happy, as are Republicans in Ohio.

• “He’s elevated problematic and flawed candidates,” says David Bergstein, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “It’s intensified vicious and expensive infighting. And he’s deterred some candidates from entering some races.”

• GOP New Hampshire Chris Sununu — seen as a great Senate recruit…recently declined to run for the seat.

• From Mar-a-Lago, Trump is happily playing kingmaker, and it’s working. New Republican candidates are afraid to challenge him; Republican incumbents cower, too. And it’s only getting worse. 

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