On Tuesday’s broadcast of Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, Washington Post columnist George Will discussed the prospects of a contest between Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton.
Will speculated that a good number of Democrats would cross over and vote for Trump on the Republican side. However, he said that without a “real conservative candidate” in the field, it may inspire a movement for a third-party candidate.
Partial transcript as follows:
HEWITT: So, George Will, we got two minutes, so expound on this for me. Donald Trump is a learning machine. I watched him at Liberty University, I watched him in New Hampshire with Scott Brown the day before, he was incredibly gracious to a disabled woman. He is getting better and better at this. And Steve Schmidt thinks he’s going to be the nominee. If he is the nominee, how many Democrats cross over to vote for him and how many Republicans cross over to vote for her if she is indicted?
WILL: There would large numbers going both ways. It would be a very interesting migration. I think you would probably have more Democrats going to the Republicans than Republicans going the Democrats but you would also figure that there would be movement to have a third-party candidate because if the election is Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump, this will be the first election since God knows when, there was no real conservative candidate. And I don’t those of us who have started our political careers, and I cast my vote for Barry Goldwater who valued that classic, creative defeat of his because he took the Republican Party and said henceforth it will be a conservative party. For those of us who feel that way are not about to sit idly and see the Republican Party, which was saved by William Howard Taft in 1912 for conservatism that was reclaimed by Barry Goldwater for conservatism, we’re not going to let it disappear in 2016.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor